


Then There Was You

by orphan_account



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Bookstore Bitty, Car Accidents, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Future Fic, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Injury Recovery, Minor Character Death, Mourning, Pens!Jack, Slow Burn, nhl jack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-16
Updated: 2017-08-23
Packaged: 2018-12-03 03:46:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 56,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11523873
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Thirty minutes after being traded to Pittsburgh, Jack Zimmermann's entire life changes at the front-end of a car running a stop sign.  As he recovers from his injury, and grief which is far more complicated than he wants to admit, he meets the exuberant bookshop/bakery owner, Eric Bittle.  As their friendship grows, and as he waits for the go-ahead to get back to hockey, Jack is forced to evaluate his future, and what he wants from it.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Just an idea I had, idk. What can I say, I just can't get enough of Zimbits AUs.
> 
> Warnings will be in tags, but also before each chapter. I finished my final paper so I have about four weeks before the new term starts, so more fanfic, yay! I don't know how many chapters this fic is going to be, but hopefully the updates will be quick. x

I never thought I'd get the chance  
To dance with someone else

Then there was you  
\- Dead or Alive

***

Jack stopped asking questions after the fourth day he was awake. After the fourth day when no one could actually answer whether or not he’d get his memories back, or whether or not he’d stop feeling like this, or whether or not what he was feeling was…well…normal.

He hadn’t lost everything. Just bits and pieces of what had been, and what might have been. But he remembered enough to know he ought to be sad—and he was. There was a gaping hole in the centre of his chest filled with loss he couldn’t get back because when people died, they died.

But a small piece of him wondered, as he lay there in the hospital bed, staring up at a small bit of what might be damp in the ceiling, was he lost because Liam was gone? Or was he lost because Liam had gone before he’d had a chance to say everything he’d wanted to say.

He recalled once, when he was very little, hearing his parents arguing at an aunt’s funeral. He was too young to really understand the gravity of the situation, and too young for the death to make much of an impact on him. But from what he did understand, the aunt hadn’t ever been a very nice person, and Alicia wasn’t above saying it. Only she’s been pulled aside by her mother—Jack’s grandmother he’d never really liked all that much—and admonished in front of everyone. “Do you need to bring this up now? Why do you insist on being like this, Alicia? You shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”

Jack was only five, but he knew the look on his mother’s face and knew she was about to say something which would send him, Alicia, and Bob packing. But Bob had pulled her aside and quietly spoke to her. Alicia wasn’t happy about it, but she stayed quiet, and they hadn’t left just then.

She waited until Jack was asleep in the car before she ranted about all the terrible things the aunt had done to her over the years. “…spent years making me feel terrible about my weight. Then making me feel like I was some sort of circus side-show, having the ‘guts,’ she called it—the _audacity_ to seek a career in acting and modelling while also being _fat_. Told me I’d never find myself outside the role of the fat friend. Fuck her. I don’t care if she’s dead. Fuck her. The world is better off.”

Bob had only murmured words of sympathy and ended the conversation with, “I shouldn’t have asked you to be quiet. You should have said what was on your mind.”

But it wasn’t his mother’s words that stuck with him, or his father’s quiet support of her. It was the look on his grandmother’s face. The abject horror at the thought Alicia might disparage the dead.

A year later, when they gathered for his aunt’s yahrzeit, he watched his grandmother’s eyes locked on his mother from behind the glow of the candle. As she recited the Kaddish, her mouth was turned down at the corners, a glower, as though daring Alicia to say a word.

She didn’t.

And Jack remembered.

For all that he’d forgotten, he remembered it there in that hospital bed, staring up at the ceiling and wanting to release all the anger that was pent up inside of him, and had been for _months_. He wondered if maybe he was being punished, somehow. That the universe decided it was time to take Liam before Jack could say his piece.

Either way, Jack knew it wouldn’t be a problem. He’d missed the funeral, and Liam was Anglican so he didn’t think there would be any expectations in a year. At least, not from him. As it was, it would be a while before Jack would be well enough to get out of the bed, and probably months before he would be able to walk on his own again.

*** 

Leaning on his walker, Jack took a small breath in, the familiar scents of his childhood home so much the same as they’d always been, it almost knocked him over. His fists closed, white-knuckled, on the handles of his walker, and he appreciated that his parents didn’t rush him over the threshold. 

It was cold out, even for Pittsburgh which was something he more remembered as a child, than the few days he’d spent here either during away games, or the hours he’d called it home before everything came crashing down. He didn’t entirely want to be _here_ , this home his parents had maintained even after his father had been traded back to Montreal. There were memories here less pleasant than he wanted to think about, but it was hard to consider that now, when he swore he could _feel_ the rod holding his femur together, and he could feel the crushing weight of grief threatening to squeeze all the air out of his lungs.

He was frozen in place until his mother called out, “Sweetheart? Do you want some tea?”

Then he took the tentative step inside, shut the door, and glanced round at the space which really hadn’t changed in years. Not since he and Kent—at just eighteen, had managed to sneak away for a long weekend without anyone finding out.

Jack sighed and closed his eyes. “I’m fine, thank you.”

The trek to his old bedroom was agonisingly slow, but the inside had been freshly redone, and he was able to lie down on a new, memory-foam mattress, feel his weight sink into it, and hope the pain medication kicked in enough to let him sleep without drowning.

*** 

_“I just don’t know when you thought you’d tell me.”_

_Jack’s hands gripped the wheel, tight enough to ache, accusations rushing through his head because how dare he. How dare Liam try and make this about the trade. “You know I don’t even know something like this is going to happen until it happens, right?”_

_“Don’t tell me your dad didn’t have his ear to the ground with this one, Jack. Just…don’t.”_

_“Are you angry because I didn’t tell you, or because you’d finally have to make a choice between me and her?” Jack spat. “When is she due again?”_

_There was a silence so profound, so intense, Jack could practically feel it._

_Liam’s mouth opened to answer._

_And then everything went black._

*** 

Jack woke with his heart in his throat, choking back his scream. His hands were curled in his sheets, his back arched, painful enough to bring tears to his eyes. He scrambled upward, fighting for every breath, and his eyes barely registered that it was still dark, that there was a storm raging outside.

Thunder, which was strange. Almost unheard of in the winter like this.

His shaking hands gripped the nightstand, and he tentatively put weight on his leg. He was supposed to be doing that now, in spite of the pain. He had a cane to help him walk, and he grabbed it, moving without really thinking until he was stood in his parents’ doorway.

His mother had always been a light sleeper. Since he was born, she told him, but worse after he’d been found on a bathroom floor with nearly half a month’s worth of anxiety pills being vomited up on dingy hotel tile.

She sat up the moment he appeared, a crease between her brows. “Jack?” she said, her voice hoarse with sleep.

Bob was up next, his eyes a little sharper than Alicia’s. He took in the look on Jack’s face, then shifted over and pat the space between them.

Jack felt five years old again, terrified of some storm, unable to find his stuffed penguin and so uncertain that whatever was scaring him was ever going to go away. Back then his anxiety manifested in monsters he couldn’t identify, and couldn’t escape.

Now he had names to go with their faces, but it didn’t feel much better, and he still felt like drowning. It was humbling and vaguely humiliating, and yet better when he was able to crawl between his parents and let their hands seek out his. He didn’t balk when his father propped his leg up with a pillow, and no one really said much of anything as his eyes closed, and he finally drifted again.

In spite of the thunder, he didn’t wake.

*** 

“I need to get out of the house,” Jack said a week later. His skin was itching, he was feeling claustrophobic. His parents were worried, because he didn’t want to talk about it—about the accident, about Liam, about the fate of his future with hockey.

He’d play again—his doctors were so certain, Mario hadn’t done much more than put Jack’s status as TBA and repeatedly gave interviews saying that as soon as they got a solid date for Jack, he’d be on the roster.

It would take months, possibly well into next season, and that wasn’t enough to keep Jack feeling like he wasn’t going to shake apart, and collapse from the inside if he had to stare at these walls any longer.

“I can take you somewhere,” Alicia said, looking up from her book.

Jack shook his head, pushing up from the sofa as he reached for his cane. “I just want to go on a walk. The pavement’s cleared out, and I’m not going to go far.”

“Sweetheart,” she started to protest. It must have been the look on his face which quieted her, and by her own expression he could tell it was out of fear of him going back to _that_ place. He hated it a little, but took it for the gift it was—to be let out on his own.

“I have my phone on me. I’ll be home soon.” He wanted to remind her he was a grown adult who had moved past the moment which had once threatened to consume his life. On his next birthday he’d be turning thirty years old. He’d lived through a few failed relationships, and one dead fiancé and his first major injury wasn’t from hockey so…

So.

He’d be alright. At least alright enough for this.

He made it two blocks up before his body wanted to give up on him, but he wasn’t ready to call it a day. The neighbourhood looked different from when he’d been here last—not enough to turn him round, but enough to make him want to explore.

His eyes cut to the left, across the slushy street, to a small little hole-in-the-wall shop with a burnt wood sign hanging over the top reading, Ten Thousand Hours. There was the faint smell of coffee and baked goods, and in the window which was fogged with salt residue from the wake of snow-ploughs, he could see a few tables.

It was enough.

It was a terrifying street-crossing, but the weather kept the traffic low, and he was across in less than a minute, though it felt like an eternity. He kept seeing headlights staring him in the face, threatening to crush him to death—to finish the job the Universe started.

But he reached the pavement safe, feet solid on the cold ground. He gripped his cane with one hand, and tugged on the door with his other.

The air was almost too warm—giving him that horrible, dizzying shock of going from one extreme to the other. His face felt stretched, his lips sluggish as they attempted to defrost. Adjusting gave him time to look round. There were tables, near the window—each one empty, but well worn and obviously loved. There were stacks and stacks of bookshelves in the back, and a small desk serving as a register counter.

To the left was the café—a small coffee bar, and a curved window full of the day’s pastries. The menu was written in chalk and there was one single person behind it, bent low as they restocked what looked like almost croissants.

When the person popped back up, his eyes widened. “Oh lord, I didn’t even see the alert. To be honest I wasn’t expectin’ a soul today, what with this snow and all. You look frozen to the bone, too. Can I grab you something warm?”

His words came out in a waterfall of southern drawl and charm, his eyes so, so brown and wide and concerned. His hair was blonde, shorn on the sides, a little floppy across the top which fell over his forehead a bit. He cocked one hand up on his hip, his head to the side as he waited for Jack to answer.

“I don’t,” Jack said, and hesitated. Coffee was off the menu for him. Caffeine was messing with his anxiety and his sleep. “Um. Tea? Herbal.”

“Now you listen here, I have the world’s best mint tea latte if you’re interested in giving it a try. You look like the sort who’s a little daring.” Then he winked and Jack actually blushed.

“Oh. Um…not usually, but okay.” He made his way to the counter, fumbling for his wallet, for a five he kept in there as the man turned round to bustle about the counter.

Jack’s eyes took in the way he moved efficiently, steaming milk, steeping the tea, compiling it all into a paper cup with soft brown designs drawn along the sides. When he turned back, he was smiling softly as he took Jack’s money, and deposited a dollar and some change back into his hand.

“Tip jar?” Jack asked.

“We don’t do that here, no worries.”

His name badge read **Bitty** in letters glittering gold, shining across the black background.

“Go on and get you a seat. You need to warm up. I can see the winter in your cheeks.” Bitty winked again, and Jack turned away before his cheeks could get any redder.

He limped carefully to a seat near the window, where he could watch Bitty behind the counter, finish up loading the pastry window. “How long have you been here?” he finally asked.

Straightening up, Bitty leant across with one arm folded, and he smiled. “Just goin’ on two years. Gotta make it past that five, you know? Before I can say I feel at all secure in this big venture. This is my shop, by the way.”

“You own it?” Jack asked.

“Birthed it myself,” Bitty replied with a small laugh. “In the sense of dreamt it, funded it, run it nearly day and night. Not a one like it.”

Jack snorted. “You’re saying there’s not another café book shop in all of Pittsburgh.”

“I’m sayin’ there’s not a shop alive that has stacks upon stacks of books written by the world’s most underrated authors. Indies,” he clarified. He hesitated, then came round the counter and leant against it, arms crossed. “I used to work in publishing, and we discovered there that an author can feel reasonably successful the moment they’ve got readers who automatically dedicate exactly ten thousand hours to reading any work they put out. But the big names want to decide for us, what we should dedicate our time to, because it puts money into their pockets. They’re afraid of losing the middle-man. So I aim to change that best as I can. I am to help those authors get their ten thousand hours.”

“You put a lot of thought into this,” Jack said quietly as he sipped the latte. It wasn’t sweet, but it was rich, and it was good, and soothing in a way most food or drink hadn’t been in so long.

“I can get a little obsessive. Fixated, my therapist calls it. I think she’s just tryin’ to be polite.”

“Doubt it. They’re not paid to be polite,” Jack said. “Trust me, I know.”

Bitty’s face stretched into a wider smile, then his eyes flickered to his leg. “How bad is it?”

Jack shrugged. “Car crash, broken femur. Out of work for a while.” He hesitated, then decided he was just going to say it because maybe it would be easier to say it to a stranger than to his parents who seemed to expect the reality of the situation would be made even more real by uttering the words. Because then he might fall apart again. “My fiancé died.”

Bitty’s face flickered through emotions Jack didn’t recognise. Then he held up a finger, turned round, and disappeared through a swinging door. He came back a moment later with a pie tin, a full pie still inside, and two forks.

He didn’t hesitate, or wait to be asked, but instead he sat at Jack’s table and put the pie between them, and held out one of the forks.

“Why?” Jack asked.

Bitty laughed. “Because something like that can only be discussed over pie. And I happen to know that grief pie tastes better right out of the tin. I’m an expert, okay? Trust me.”

Jack couldn’t help a smile, and it was the first voluntary smile drawn out of him without effort. It didn’t make anything better, but there was a strange wash of relief that cascaded up and down his spine as he dug his fork straight into the middle, and pulled out a chunk of apple, dripping with a light brown sauce.

“There’s bourbon and maple in it,” Bitty said.

Jack took the bite, then smiled again. “I like it.”

“No one’s ever told me different,” Bitty said. “Now, do you want to be distracted, or do you want to tell me about it?”

Jack froze, the bite of pie half-way to his mouth, and he considered this for the first time, instead of letting a reflexive, “No, thank you,” rush from his lips. All the same, the answer didn’t change. He wasn’t ready to face the reality of what it was—not quite ready to explain why it didn’t ache as much as it probably should. “I’m…”

“It’s fine,” Bitty said in a rush, reading the distress on Jack’s face. “I’m…I shouldn’t have asked.” He bit his lip, then dug into the corner of the pie. “You live here, right?”

“Just moved,” Jack said, and reached for the tea. “Well, I lived here when I was a kid, but it’s been a long time.”

“How long have you been back?”

Jack snorted a tiny laugh. “I was a resident exactly thirty minutes before the car hit me. So…a few months, but most of that has been in hospital.”

“Shit,” Bitty said. “That’s…complicated.” He leant back, poking the fork into the crust, but not taking a bite. “I’ve been here five years now, a year of grad school, leaving that mess, then opening up this shop which has become my literal child and raging success.”

“Raging,” Jack repeated, chirping him with a slow look round at the empty space.

Bitty kicked him under the table, pointing his fork at him. “I’ll have you know, Mr…uh…”

“Zimmermann,” he supplied, realising there hadn’t actually been introductions. “Jack Zimmermann.”

“Well, Mr Zimmermann, I’m Eric Bittle. And I’ll have you know that my shop is a wild success. You know Sidney Crosby, of the Pittsburgh Penguins?”

Jack’s smile was small and wry. “I’ve heard of him, yes.”

“Well he’s come into my shop more than a few times for our famous maple frosted sugar cookies. And it doesn’t get better than that.”

Jack speared another bit of apple. “You’re a hockey fan?”

Bitty shrugged. “I grew up on football. My dad’s a coach and well…” He licked his lips, glancing down suddenly and looking oddly sad. “I wasn’t much of what he wanted in a son. It’s better now, but it’s never been great. Anyway I played a little in high school. No checking community league. I got offered a scholarship, actually, but…I couldn’t handle it at NCAA level.”

Jack’s brow furrowed. “Why’s that, if you don’t mind me asking.”

Bitty shrugged. “Later my therapist called it PTSD, but at the time I called it, being so petrified I would literally faint any time someone came near me. It was tough. I wanted out of Georgia so badly, and Samwell…it was one in four, you know? But I got in-state tuition at the University of Georgia and I met my boyfriend there…”

“You have a boyfriend?” Jack blurted.

Bitty bit his lip, then shrugged. “Yeah. I…yeah, I do.” There was more to it, it sounded like, but Jack didn’t press and Bitty didn’t elaborate. “Anyway, we moved here, and now Sidney Crosby likes my cookies.”

“So you’re a Pens fan,” Jack said.

Bitty rolled his eyes. “I think the Pens are a little overrated. And I know, I know,” he said, holding up a hand. “Blasphemy here, but I feel safe sayin’ that to you and all since you’re not actually _from_ here. But I think their players are over-paid and there’s better talent out there. Like Subban.”

Jack’s mouth stretched into an even bigger smile. “So you think they’re paid more than they’re worth.”

Bitty shrugged. “I mean okay, they’ve got _some_ cups to show for it. Last year was a dang nightmare all through June. So um…if anyone asks, I’m a fan. If you ask…” He shrugged. “Eh.”

“Sounds fair,” Jack said, still grinning.

After a beat, Bitty said, “Okay so I spilt my story. Your turn. What do you do, Mr Zimmermann?”

Jack looked at him a long time, his smile twitching, then after a long breath he said, “Well…I play Centre on the Pittsburgh Penguins.”

Bitty stared a minute, then rolled his eyes. “Ha. Ha. Very funny.”

Jack shrugged, reaching for his phone, tapping his own name into google, then passed it across the table. He watched, still grinning as Bitty picked it up, and his eyes flicked over each news article until he was brave enough to stared back at Jack.

“Oh my god.”

Jack full-on laughed, which was the first time he’d done it in months. It almost hurt, his cheeks aching, his stomach sore, but it felt so damn good. “It’s okay. I won’t tell about your traitorous opinions, since you know… the pie is so good. I will probably need a few bribery maple cookies though, to ensure there’s no…slip of the tongue.”

“I’m…” Bitty stared, then looked back down at the phone and his face fell. “You’re the second out player in the NHL.”

Jack swallowed. “Ah. Yes, I am.”

“I can’t believe…I mean, I heard about it. Of course I heard about it. That was…” Bitty stopped, biting his lip for a second, then breathed out. “Sorry, you probably get that a lot and your fiancé just…shit. Fuck.”

Jack swallowed against a lump in his throat, waving it away. “It’s alright. Seriously it’s…complicated, you know? Things between me and Liam were complicated and I…crisse, I’m not ready to even think about it yet.”

Bitty nodded, then slid the phone back and stared at his hands. “I don’t actually have any maple cookies ready to go.”

At the sound of the sad tone, Jack actually chuckled and shook his head. “Incentive to come back, eh? I mean, free pie, free cookies…”

“Over-paid hockey players shouldn’t be trying to get free stuff, you know. I know you’re good for it,” Bitty chirped, and Jack laughed again.

“How about I leave something for the tip jar.”

“Oh lord, this boy,” Bitty muttered, but he was smiling again. “You really will come back, won’t you?”

Jack nodded sagely. “I have nothing but time right now. Not until my leg heals, and that’s a few months off. So yeah, Bitty. I’ll be back.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Discussions of grief, and some casual abelist language from a brief OC.

Jack clutched the glass between his hands, feeling the cold biting into the tips of his fingers. He hated ice water, but it was something he learnt early on could keep him focused instead of letting the well of anxiety overwhelm him. Especially during complicated sessions. And he wasn’t sure the last time his session was straight-forward.

Before he’d moved to Pittsburgh, he’d been working on being able to confront Liam. He’d been working on re-learning that he was allowed to be happy, and he didn’t have to sacrifice everything about himself for someone else. That wasn’t his job, and he would survive without Liam if it came down to that. Proposing to someone was not a binding, lifetime contract. Nor was marriage. He had options. Liam would get on without him.

Except the Universe had decided for him, it seemed. The choice of what to do had been ripped from his fingers moments before he meant to say it aloud. Liam had been crushed between the front-end of a truck running a stop sign, and there was nothing left to be said.

“Jack?”

Jack glanced up at Linda, trying not to sigh too loudly. New city, new therapist, and it was exhausting because learning to trust someone all over again was never easy. But he did like her. She was an old colleague of his old therapist—highly recommended not because of nepotism or favouritism, but because Marie knew what Jack needed. And he wasn’t upset she’d been right, but he was still tired because all of this was…a lot.

“Sorry,” he said finally, putting the glass down on the table. He had no intention of drinking it, but he liked the way the condensation felt under the pads of his fingers. It got irritating after a while, but for moments, it was nice. “I’m tired today.”

“Fatigue, or mental?” she asked.

“Both. The nightmares aren’t happening as often, but I still don’t feel like I’m getting a lot of rest.”

“Well,” she said slowly, “we do have the option of revisiting sleep-aids. There are plenty on the market with low risk of dependency and…”

“No,” Jack said, a little snappy. He breathed through it, reminding himself that she might have his file, but she didn’t know him yet, didn’t understand the gravity of that suggestion. “I’m sorry. Sorry but…low risk is too high for me. The stuff for my anxiety well…I get it. It’s necessary and it always will be, but I can’t…I can’t give myself anything else.”

“Okay.” She made a note on her small pad. “You might want to try adding something to your routine. Modified yoga, acupressure, or acupuncture have had some mixed results, but nothing that would put you at risk for trying. There’s also modifying your routine. I know you know about avoiding caffeine and exercise before bed…”

“I’m avoiding caffeine altogether,” Jack said. “I’ve been doing that for the past five years. And all my PT is in the morning.” He sighed, scrubbing a hand down his face. “I think it’s going take more time.”

“It is,” she confirmed. “Jack, you’ve been dealing with recovery and looking at your future, and I’m not sure how much time you’ve dedicated to grieving over Liam.”

Jack felt his jaw grit. “It’s so complicated.”

“I know,” she said. “Death always is, and when someone goes before you have the chance to tell them all the things you think they need to hear…”

“I was in the middle of breaking up with him. I don’t…” Jack swallowed. “I don’t know how sad I’m supposed to be.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Why do you think there’s some level of required grief, Jack? It’s a spectrum, but it’s completely personal. You might feel nothing for someone you’ve seen every day for the last ten years, and you might feel devastated when you learn about the death of some elementary school classmate you haven’t seen in twenty. There’s no way to predict, and none of it is wrong.”

Jack let his eyes fix on a bead of condensation slowly dripping down the side of the glass. After a long moment, it joined the others, pooling in a rim round the bottom that would likely leave a stain. Maybe warp the wood. He looked up at Linda but she seemed unconcerned.

“Part of me worries what other people are going to think,” he confessed. “If they ever learn the truth. No one knew about the…about the baby. About the affair. I think he left her enough money with his life insurance that she’s not going to say anything. Or…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Maybe she will.”

“I think that’s a valid fear,” she said. “As long as you understand whatever people might think won’t make whatever it is you are feeling, wrong. There is no right or wrong answer here when we lose someone we care about.”

“I just don’t know if I cared about him,” Jack said from behind a sigh. “I had spent so long trying to revive a relationship that had died years ago.” He dragged a hand through his hair and felt his throat get tight with repressed tears. He wanted to cry, but not in front of her. Safe space or not, he wasn’t ready for that. “By the time we were sat in that car and he looked at me without emotion I knew it went both ways. I didn’t care about him either.”

“You didn’t love him anymore,” she clarified. “And that’s okay. You don’t have to love someone to be affected by their death. To wish it was different.”

Jack supposed she was right, and he supposed he was luck that at least—at the moment—he wasn’t blaming himself. He’d spent too many years in therapy after Parse learning to navigate self-blame and when to take personal responsibility for things—and when not to. The accident was not his fault. He was obeying traffic laws, and someone else wasn’t. He couldn’t have done anything different, or better.

Sometimes life was chaotic and shitty. There was no other way to explain it.

“I want you to think about telling someone else about Liam. Maybe not everything, but some of it. It doesn’t have to be someone you’re particularly close to, unless you think that would help. But I think getting outside validation from someone other than a person you’re paying might feel…better.”

Jack opened his mouth to retort, when suddenly the image of that blond bookshop man popped into his head, and he closed it again. Strangely, warmth bloomed in his belly, different and lighter to any emotion he’d been feeling for most of this hour. The want was visceral, and it was startling because Jack hadn’t wanted to open up to anyone in a long time.

“I’ll think about it,” he said.

She smiled. “Good. Now…I have you marked down here for our usual Friday session. And oh, you needed the progress letter for your GM, right?”

Jack nodded, swallowing against his dry throat, and coughed a bit. “Yeah, yes. That would be helpful, thanks.”

“Why don’t you head out to the lobby. I need to type it up really quick, won’t take more than five.”

Jack nodded, leaving everything exactly where it was—the glass, the water ring, the table slowly warping—and he made his way back to the cosy armchair he’d been sat in before Linda had called him back.

A moment after he sat, one of the back doors opened, and a woman walked out. She was tall, blonde, pale skin, light eyes. She gave Jack a cursory, sharing-the-lobby smile as she sat near him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. He noticed her fingers trembling, and he was familiar with the sensation.

There was a beat of awkward silence before she said, “Waiting for yours?”

Jack blinked at her. “Sorry?”

“I…your kid?” She nodded toward the set of doors he knew were for the paediatric patients. “Mine’s just about done.”

“Oh,” Jack said, a little breathy. “No I…no. This is for me.”

“Oh my god,” she said, clearly mortified, and she covered her face. “I’m sorry, shit. I have been such a disaster lately. Faux pas and being the world’s shittiest parent…”

Jack winced in sympathy. “It’s okay, you know. I’m…being asked doesn’t bother me. It’s fine. And chances are, you aren’t the world’s shittiest parent. You’re here, aren’t you?”

“Taking my kid to therapy,” she said with a scoff. “What does that say about me?”

Jack’s insides began to squirm uncomfortably. Because what if his parents ever felt like that. Like they’d failed him when he was first diagnosed. Like somehow it was their fault his brain had just been wired differently. And what if they held some internal level of disgust with it, the way this woman thought. “A shitty parent wouldn’t bother getting their kid help,” Jack said, instead of the hundred other things running through his mind. “A shitty parent would leave their kid to suffer and cope alone.”

Tucking her bottom lip between her teeth, she breathed out through her nose. “I just…worry I did something wrong. This divorce…” She trailed off with a slightly high-pitched laugh. “Sorry, you do not need to know that. I guess…” She paused, looking him up and down. “All this could last forever, couldn’t it?”

“Yes,” Jack said, in no mood to sugar coat it for her. “It’s not the end of the world, though. People live with a lot of things. They don’t necessarily need a cure—just support.”

Just then, Linda came out of the office with the letter, tucked neatly in an unsealed envelope. “Here you go, Jack. See you Friday?”

“I’ll be here,” Jack said, tucking the letter into the inside pocket of his jacket. He turned back to the mom and sighed. “I can’t tell you it’s easy, but I can tell you it’s not always an internal war. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like anything at all. But the most helpful thing for me is knowing that when it starts to feel like I can’t get through it, I have people who help me. That’s the most important thing you can do for your kid.”

Then he left, pushing through the doors, out into the frigid street.

*** 

He meant to go home. Truly, he meant to get in the cab and go home and process some of the things he’d talked about today. But instead he ended up stopping the Uber in front of the little shop with the fogged windows, and he got out. His leg was stiff and aching, but since he’d been cleared to put weight on it without his cane, he planned on doing that as much as possible. It was a struggle to navigate past the puddles and bits of snow, but he knew there was a comfortable table waiting for him, and another tea latte.

Jack walked inside, and was startled to find the place close to busy. Nothing like restaurants with half an hour wait, but there was a queue at least five deep—people browsing books with paper cups of take-away drinks, a woman at the register with a sharp, V-cut bob—shaved on one side, and a cascade of watercolour tattoos up her left arm.

There were two people behind the café counter—Bitty one of them, and the other a redhead with freckles who was quickly loading up the pastry counter. Bitty’s smile was bright as he talked to the person ordering his drink, then his dark eyes glanced past the queue and landed on Jack.

His mouth dropped open a little, curving into a wide grin. It had been two weeks since Jack found the courage to come back, and part of him wondered if Bitty had forgotten him.

Turned out not to be true. “You sit, hon,” Bitty called over the small crowd. “I have yours comin’.”

Jack flushed at the attention—eyes on him, some with maybe a hint of recognition since the trade had been public and the people here loved their Pens. And Jack was well…he was Jack Zimmermann, hockey royalty and a Pens lifer in a way thanks to his dad and Mario.

All the same, no one said a word, and he managed to ease down into a chair, which alleviated some of the throbbing in his thigh. His hands clasped on the table, fingers itching for something to do. He could pull out his phone and call someone. He could call Sid, or maybe even Marc and get them to come by. That would certainly cause a stir.

But Jack felt almost suffocated by the idea he’d have to share Bitty’s attention. He liked the guy. He’d been the first one to treat the situation like something—maybe not normal, but also not like a side-show. Jack was just a guy with a broken leg and dead fiancé and maybe played some hockey sometimes. And there was every chance Bitty felt differently on the inside, but whatever he gave Jack felt good.

Jack hadn’t made a lot of friends outside hockey. There was Shitty—the lawyer brought in two years before Jack had been traded. Shitty, who’d gotten stoned and flopped down on Jack’s lap with half his shirt unbuttoned raving about heteronormativity and bros being able to just be bros without having to worry about whether or not skin-to-skin contact meant anything.

He’d grown on Jack a bit like a moss, really. Soft and not really harmful—even if it was annoying at times. He’d cried hardest at the trade, even if Jack wasn’t going _that_ far.

And really, that was it. Everything Jack did—everything he ate, breathed, slept—it was hockey. And it didn’t make those friendships less, just…isolated. Which was why, he supposed, he fought so hard for Liam for so long. Liam, who didn’t really like any sports, and who preferred to be places no one would recognise Jack, and liked to talk about his day and his job and ignore everything Jack had done.

It had been refreshing. Until it wasn’t. Until it became obvious Liam only cared about Jack as an extension of himself, not as his own person. It had been a painful revelation, like a gaping wound he hadn’t realised was there until it became infected. But he was so used to fighting, so used to trying, he wasn’t sure how to give it up.

“Well, well, if it isn’t Captain Penguin.”

“I’m not the captain,” Jack said, a wry grin Bitty seemed to be able to draw out of him, no matter his mood. “At least not yet. How does it feel to be a traitor to your own city, Bittle?”

Bitty’s mouth dropped open, his cheeks pinking, and he leant forward. “How dare you. And after I gave you pie…”

“I thought that was out of pity,” Jack said.

It was meant as a joke, a light chirp, but the gravity of why Bitty had brought him the pie in the first place seemed to hit them both, and Bitty’s hand—almost like a reflex—dropped onto Jack’s shoulder. “I’m…it wasn’t out of pity. It was out of solidarity, Jack,” he said, his voice weighty and soft. “I just wanted to do what I could to make you feel better.”

Jack shook his head. “It did. I was just…sorry, my sense of humour’s a little off right now, I think. It helped, and it’s been a while since anything really helped.”

Bitty let out a small breath, then groaned. “Look, I have a huge queue of customers and Dex is great in the kitchen, but not so much with the customer service so I should go handle that. But…will you be sticking around?”

_You should tell someone who doesn’t know._

The words of his therapist echoed in his head, and Jack blurted, “Would you like to maybe grab dinner or something?”

Bitty hesitated, his cheeks pinking, and there was purpose in his words—an almost worry—when he said, “Just as friends?”

Jack couldn’t help a tiny chuckle. “I know you have a boyfriend, Bittle. But um…talking to you was easy and in all honesty if I have to sit at the table and watch my parents stare at me like I’m going to turn to dust one more night…”

Bitty relaxed, and he squeezed Jack’s shoulder for good measure. “I know a really good place not far from here. We close up at six, and I have about a half hour of paperwork and deposits to get done. Pick me up at seven?”

“Will do.” Jack hesitated, then glanced over at the stacks of books. “Tell me where I can find a good historical fiction. Something maybe not…overly heterosexual?”

Bitty brightened. “See that red painting, with all the slash marks across?” He pointed to an asymmetrical canvas hung on the wall in the back left corner. “Third shelf down, historical LGBT. There isn’t a lot, but I’m willing to bet you’ll find something.”

Jack nodded, and took his paper take-away tea latte, and began to wander. His thigh still ached, and his head was still full of…a lot. But he felt warm inside as his fingers brushed over the matte spines of novels he wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

And though Jack didn’t know him well, he knew this was very Bitty. Giving a voice to those who might not otherwise be heard. He felt a brief pang of jealousy—wondering why he could never meet a person like that—hoping Bitty’s boyfriend understood what a rarity it was, because for all that Jack hadn’t explored much, he’d explored enough. And he knew a person who deserved to be treasured when he met them.

For now, he tucked that away, letting his gratitude that Bitty was willing to be friends—because he needed that. A safe, soft spot to land through all this grief and trying to get back on his feet. He was soothed by the warm brown eyes, and the gentle twang, and the way Bitty was willing to offer something Jack needed.

Taking the book to the counter, he smiled at the woman there whose name-badge read ‘Lardo’ in bold letters. Her smile was a little higher on the left side than the right, and her look was calculating, but more curious than threatening. “So. Pens.”

It took a minute for Jack to catch up, then he laughed. “Yes. The Bruins fan told you, eh?”

Lardo giggled as she took his card and swiped it on the tablet. “He mentioned something about showing his entire ass to one of the Pittsburgh Penguins, and he spent all week thinking there was going to be a parade of giant hockey players marching in here to kick his ass when they heard.”

“I haven’t told anyone. Yet,” Jack said, then winked.

“Playing your cards close to your chest. I like that.” She stuffed the receipt into the book, then handed it over. “His number’s on the bottom. He said you can text him later. You two have fun tonight.”

Jack opened his mouth, suddenly feeling a compulsion to assure her there was nothing going on, that it wasn’t more than friendly. But her eyes were soft, and her smile even softer, and he realised maybe she got it. Maybe, in all of Bitty’s chaotic life, he also needed a friend.

“I’m sure I’ll see you soon,” he said, backing up.

She laughed. “I don’t doubt it. This place is addictive. And I don’t just mean the caffeine. See you, Zimmermann.”

Her tone was sort of final, so he tipped her a wave, then one last at Bitty who was scrambling with a latte, and then he was gone.

*** 

“Don’t you look sharp,” Alicia said as Jack came out of the bathroom, a towel rubbing at his hair. He was dressed though, flannel shirt, jeans, a nicer pair of shoes. He felt awkward and cumbersome in the leg brace, but there were worse things, he supposed. And it wasn’t like he was trying to impress anyone.

He groaned at his mother who was smiling at him over the rim of her tea mug. “I’m going out with a friend for dinner.”

Her eyebrows lifted just a little. “Oh?”

“He owns a little bookshop, and his boyfriend is out of town, so we’re going to hang out for a bit.” When he saw her get a little misty, he sighed and collapsed on the sofa next to her. “Maman, please don’t…”

“I’m just…look,” she said, and set her tea mug down, rubbing the flat of her palms over her thighs. “I don’t mean to baby you, and you know I’ve had trouble with that most of your life. I mean, you and your papa are my entire world and I’m never going to be able to…what do the kids call it these days? Chill?”

“Maman,” he groaned.

She laughed, but sobered quickly. “When your fiancé dies, of course I’m going to worry, Jack. If anything had happened to your father back then, I wouldn’t have been able to go on. I was _so_ in love, and all I wanted was to be with him. I just…I’m in awe of you, Jack.”

Guilt rushed through him, and he so desperately wanted to tell her. To curl up in her lap like he was four again, and just cry and let her use all the magic words she had in her head to make it feel better. Only it had never really worked that way, not even back then, because it was more than just worry and fear. They didn’t know it at the time, but he did now. This wasn’t something a hug would cure, and he wanted to know—he wanted to understand—before he said anything.

“I’m not trying to keep anything from you, or…wallow,” Jack said. “I just have to sort myself before I can talk about it.”

“I know, mon coeur. I’m not asking you to rush your process.” She reached over, brushing her hand down his cheek. “Just know that your papa and I love you, beyond all reason and ration, okay? Whatever you need…”

“I know,” Jack said, very soft, and he let her pull him in to a hug, which lingered and lingered until his back ached from being bent over. But it was nice, and it felt a little like it had when he was small enough to curl up against her and feel safe.

He understood how profoundly lucky he was to have this, when so many people didn’t. And yet it was a strange burden because whatever he felt, whatever he did, it affected them too. But he wouldn’t keep silent forever.

“I should finish getting ready,” he said, pushing up from the sofa. “I don’t know when I’ll be back.”

“You don’t have a curfew, you know,” Alicia said with a tiny laugh as she picked up her mug again. “Though I would not be opposed to meeting one of your friends. Especially one that isn’t a hockey player.”

Jack rolled his eyes as he slipped into the bathroom to comb his hair. He refused to let himself give it much thought, a few swipes, spritz of product, done. When he came out, he was pushing his phone into his pocket, and grabbing a scarf. “We’ll see. I don’t need the two of you embarrassing me with photos of me shitting in the cup.”

“That’s inevitable, Jack,” she said with a grin. “Have fun, okay? Whatever else you do just…make sure you have fun.”

He couldn’t help a smile, and by the look on her face he was reminded it was probably his first genuine one since coming home. “I’ll do my best. Love you.”

“Love you too, mon coeur.”

He was out the door, and in his car, speeding toward the café feeling a mixture of apprehension and relief. It wasn’t therapy, it wasn’t a cure, but it was a blossoming friendship and Jack couldn’t shake the weight of it, and how much it really meant _something_.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I love a fic, I write it fast. What can I say? Bless this time off I have. One whole month of freedom, I could cry lol.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: discussions of infidelity, grief, losing a partner--brief mentions of low-key homophobia from growing up in the south.
> 
> There are some IRL hockey players interacted with in this fic for a short second, but for 90% of the fic they're going to be very briefly mentioned, if at all, because I don't do RPF. It's just impossible to completely avoid now that I have Jack on an IRL hockey team.

The snow began a handful of minutes before Jack pulled up to the bookshop. The little burnt wood sign was glowing in the distant lamplight, with the flakes melting across the zeros. Bitty was stood underneath it, a toque pulled down over his forehead, a tartan scarf wrapped tight under his neck. He was in a black wool pea-coat, looking every bit of stylish as Jack had ever seen on magazine covers, and it was fitting. Bitty was different to most of the models Jack had gotten to know through Liam, but he carried that air of confidence and almost unassuming beauty that belonged on covers with the trained professionals.

It was a strange way to think of his new friend—he understood that. But he never tried to cull his thoughts anymore. He didn’t always speak them aloud, but he let them exist without repressing anything. 

Pulling to the kerb, Jack smiled at Bitty as he climbed in, chuckling a little at the quiet shiver and the bits of melted snow dripping off the end of his nose. “That was unexpected. Weather app said it was going to be a nice evening.”

“You don’t think snow’s nice?” Jack chirped as he pulled away from the kerb.

“Keep it up, Mr Zimmermann,” Bitty said with a huff. “I’m a Georgia boy, okay? I’ve spent years tolerating the snow, but I’m never going to think it’s nice.”

“I’ve heard it can be romantic,” Jack tried as Bitty tapped the address into his dash GPS.

With a snort, Bitty rolled his eyes. “Getting frostbite and hypothermia ain’t romantic, Jack. I can’t think of a date ending in hospital as something I’d like to aim for.”

Jack chuckled as he followed the GPS voice, telling him to turn left. “Southerners. No ability to acclimate.”

“Rude,” Bitty said, but he was smiling. “How are you feeling, by the way? You seemed um…” He shrugged.

“I had therapy today,” Jack said, choosing to be direct and honest. “Some days are worse than others, and today turned out to be one of those.” He gripped the wheel tight, then said, “There was a mother in the waiting room and her kid was there. I don’t know why but…but she acted like having a kid who needed therapy was the worst thing in the world and it made me…” He bit his lip, not quite sure how to voice it. “There have been times during my life I wondered if my parents secretly regret having a child like me. Who needed you know…more.”

“I don’t know your parents,” Bitty said, his voice full and warm. “I can’t pretend like I do, I can’t say that of course they don’t resent it. But turnin’ out the way you did—at least from what I know—I’d say chances are low. Parents who resent their kids, well it leaves a mark, Jack. And I don’t think you’d look so fond talkin’ about them like you do if that was the case.”

“You sound like you know from experience.”

Bitty scoffed. “Let’s just say that votin’ for Clinton don’t make a small-town Georgia football coach ready to fully support his openly gay son. They didn’t hate me, but there were moments they wished I was something else.”

“You could tell that’s what they wanted?” Jack chanced. They were near the restaurant, and he started to look for parking.

“Oh honey, I didn’t have to guess. They told me right to my face,” Bitty said simply. He bit at his thumbnail, then sighed and pitched his voice higher. “I never wanted this for you, Dicky, I didn’t want life to be harder for you.” He scoffed again and shook his head. “Why do they always say that? Like hearin’ that’s gonna make me feel better? Make it seem like loving me in spite of who I am is something I should be grateful for? All I hear when they say that is they just didn’t want me to decide for myself what was going to make me happy.”

“I’m sorry,” Jack said very softly as they pulled up to the kerb. He could see into the restaurant, and there were very few tables with people which set him at ease. Pittsburgh, luckily, was used to their hockey stars living a normal life—at least in the way of eating out, and making visits to the super market. But there was always that chance of interruption, and tonight Jack just wanted…something. Quiet, maybe? The chance to just talk and exist.

“It is what it is. We have…a relationship. Not the best, but not the worst. But I get your fear, Jack. And I’m sorry it was hard.” Bitty reached over and squeezed his wrist before letting himself out.

Jack took a few extra minutes getting his balance, dealing with the dull ache in his thigh. He was off most of the pain meds, and ibuprofen was enough to take the edge off, but he’d been doing a lot of walking and he was grateful that the pavement leading to the front door was short.

They were seated straight away, and Jack ordered a water as Bitty grabbed a glass of the house red. Bitty also took the liberty of ordering a few appetisers for them to share, then said, “Get the halibut. I’m not really a big fish guy but trust me, you’ll thank me later.”

It was easy, and it was nice, and Jack knew he wanted to maybe talk to Bitty a little, to take his therapist’s advice, but more than that he found himself wanting to know Bitty. To hear about him, to not make this all about himself.

“So, your boyfriend,” Jack said.

Bitty groaned. “I knew he was going to come up.”

With a wince, Jack gave him a careful look. “Is he…are you two…”

“Things are tense right now. My fault because I’m so busy with the shop and when I opened it I knew he wasn’t interested in doing it with me. And his fault because he could make more of an effort, but he’d rather take extra assignments instead of trying to find a happy medium. We’ve been through it before. We always get past it, but it’s hard right now.”

“What does he do?” Jack asked, thumbing the rim of his water glass absently. He was leaning his chin on his curled knuckles, elbow pressed to the table cloth, and he found himself a little entranced about how the soft candle-like lighting played off Bitty’s hair.

“He’s a journalist. Mostly LGBT stuff—events, charity, discourse in the community. He’s in New York right now covering some story about bigotry in popular restaurants or something like that. I’m not even entirely sure what his angle is, but he’s supposed to be back next week so…” Bitty blew a puff of air out of his mouth, then took a long drink of his wine. “Is it okay if we don’t talk about it?”

“I didn’t mean to pry,” Jack said, a little ashamed.

Bitty kicked him under the table. “Oh stop, you kicked puppy. I didn’t mean…it’s not your fault, and you’ve given me way more about your life than I’ve given you. It’s just raw right now.” Bitty flushed then and looked away. “Shit. As I’m sure you know.”

Jack shook his head. “No I…” He swallowed, then went in head first. “I haven’t talked to anyone except my therapist about Liam, but today she said I might…that I might benefit from telling someone. That maybe keeping quiet all this time is…affecting my ability to move on. You don’t…I’m not…” Jack didn’t know how to ask, and he let out a frustrated sigh. “I know we just met…”

“It’s okay,” Bitty said softly. “I mean, normally it might be weird, but…there was somethin’ about you, Jack Zimmermann, Penguins guy.” They both smiled at each other, and Bitty shook his head. “If you need to get stuff off your chest, I’m all yours. I’ve been trying to be a better listener lately. All I can seem to do is talk. Like…I’m doing right now.”

Jack laughed softly. “I like it when you talk. But…I wouldn’t mind if um…”

“Have at it,” Bitty said.

There was a pause, the appetisers brought to the table, and Jack took a moment to spear some sautéed calamari on his fork. It was chewy, a texture he didn’t love, so he moved over to the asparagus and put some on his plate.

“Liam and I had been together a long time. I met him about two weeks after my break up with Camilla Collins…”

“Why do I know that name?” Bitty asked with a frown.

“She won Wimbledon last year,” Jack said, and Bitty laughed.

“Lord, alright. Wimbledon.”

Jack licked his lips, smiling a bit. “We were still friends, and honestly we hadn’t…I mean, it’s hard to even call it dating because we never saw each other. But it was still a little sad, and I was at a bar with some of the guys and Liam was there unwinding after a long interview. We got a little drunk, and a little chatty, and somehow we ended up back at mine. After that we just…kept dating.”

Bitty pursed his lips, then nodded. “Okay.”

Jack took a breath. “He wasn’t…it was okay at first, mostly because I’m on the road so much, and so was he. He’s a… _was_ a model. Did a lot of international shoots, a few walk-on roles for films. My mom and him got along really well, and she got him a few gigs he’d been angling for and it was…nice. Domestic, I guess. I was so busy I just didn’t have time to realise I was so unhappy. I didn’t realise he was until I walked in on him sleeping with his co-worker. They were in the dressing room and I got home early and I thought I’d surprise him…” Jack’s voice broke off, and he took a minute as he avoided Bitty’s sympathetic gaze.

“You don’t have to…”

“Is it okay if I do?” Jack asked.

“Of course. Sweetheart…of course,” Bitty said.

Jack gave a firm nod. “Okay. Okay…” He breathed out. “It had been going on for a few months. She travelled a lot with him, and they fell together. But we talked and talked, and he said he wanted to make it better with me. I thought proposing was…I thought it might fix things. I bought flowers got a ring, and it was nice. For a while.”

“For a while,” Bitty echoed.

Jack nodded. “She got pregnant a month later. I didn’t find out about it until I ran into the two of them holding a sonogram picture.” Jack dragged a hand down his face, remembering that moment, the shock of it, and the way it was supposed to have hurt and just…didn’t. “Her doctor had been moved to the same building as my sports therapist. We just sort of…stood there, in the corridor, staring at each other. Then I left and he didn’t come home for a week. He kept saying he didn’t know what he wanted, and I kept asking him to make a decision. Then my therapist asked me why I was waiting on him, and what did I want. I hadn’t realised I wasn’t asking myself, you know? I didn’t know why it was always, always up to him.” Anger crept into his tone, and Jack breathed through it. “So I decided it was over. I didn’t know when to tell him, and before I got the chance, I was traded.”

“Traded here,” Bitty said. “To the Pens.”

Jack nodded. “If I hadn’t been so wrapped up in all of that shit with Liam, I would have known about the trade ahead of time. But I didn’t…I didn’t care. I sort of always knew I’d either end up here, or with the Habs, and…and I didn’t expect Liam to come with me, but he wanted to talk things over. He liked my parents,” Jack said quietly.

“Oh, honey…”

“I decided it was time. We were heading to the apartment I’d just bought and it was dark, and late, and this person was buzzed and texting and ran a stop sign and then…”

“Hit you,” Bitty said quietly.

“I wanted it to be over. I didn’t want him to be dead,” Jack said, and then he realised that was the first time he’d said that aloud. To anyone. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”

“Oh, honey,” Bitty said again, and reached for his wrist, squeezing it. “I don’t think most people want it to happen like this. Of…of course they don’t.”

“I just,” Jack said, staring at his untouched food, miserable and aching. “I don’t know how I feel. I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, or…or if it’s numb now but going to hit me later…” He had to stop when his voice cracked, and he felt his eyes get hot. Panic rushed up his spine, and he abruptly stood. “I’m going to…I just…”

“Go on,” Bitty said, his voice patient and soft.

Jack rushed past a few patrons, to the toilet where he bent over the sink and cupped water in his hands to splash on his face. His fingers were trembling with repressed emotion, confused by them. He knew something had been lurking just under his skin, something he hadn’t been able to call forth during therapy but now it was tumbling out like a waterfall.

Knowing he was taking ages, knowing Bitty was still waiting, Jack pulled out his phone and sent his therapist a text. **I took your advice, I told a friend. I’m not doing great, but I think it helped. Do you think we can meet earlier?**

There was only a moment’s pause before Linda’s reply came through. _I have an open spot tomorrow at 9. Jot you down?_

**Yes, please. Thank you. I’m safe tonight.**

_Call if you need me._

Jack pushed his phone into his pocket and when he was certain he wasn’t going to burst into tears, he dried his face and looked at himself. He wasn’t as big of a mess as he thought he might be. His eyes were a little red, a little puffy, cheeks mottled pink, but otherwise he was okay. It had been several minutes, and he hoped he hadn’t scared Bitty off completely.

His hands still shook as he reached for the door handle, but he felt more composed than before as he wandered back into the dining room. Bitty was still there, at their table which was now clear of everything. The bill also lay off to the side, clearly signed, and Jack felt a rush of guilt through him.

“You didn’t have to,” he started as he reached for his chair.

Bitty shook his head as he stood, and then Jack noticed that the server had packed everything in take-away containers for them. “So I know it’s winter, and it’s frozen outside, but there’s this little shop not far off that sells these amazing frozen hot chocolates. I know they’re probably _not_ in an NHL nutrition plan but…”

Jack let out a tense but grateful laugh, and he sighed. “I…yeah. Okay. I think tonight earnt some chocolate.”

Bitty beamed at him, and Jack felt even warmer as he led the way back to his car.

*** 

“…so he’s wasted,” Bitty said, waving his spoon round, flicking bits of chocolate on the table, and a few landing on Jack’s sleeve, though he can’t bring himself to care. “Lardo’s screaming at him that if he doesn’t get down, he’s going to break something. He yells, Mary Poppins, mother fucker, and just…dives. Obviously,” Bitty said, frowning, “the umbrella did not break his fall like…at all.”

Jack snorted, covering his laugh with the back of his hand to keep from spraying Bitty with a mouthful of whipped cream. “Your friends sound like they’d get along with my friend Shitty.”

“I still can’t get over you have a friend, who is a lawyer, and his name is Shitty.”

Jack shrugged. “He insists it’s better than his actual name, which no one calls him. If we can’t use Shitty in polite conversation, they just call him Knight.”

“I feel like he missed out on some seriously amazing Dark Knight jokes instead of Shitty,” Bitty replied as he scooped up another spoonful of the treat.

They’d been sat in the little ice cream shop—which was almost completely empty—for nearly an hour. Longer than their dinner had lasted, which was cooling rapidly in the back seat of Jack’s car. Jack had insisted on buying, and Bitty had insisted on sharing since, “That’s how you’re supposed to eat them, Jack! Trust me, okay? I’m an expert,” which also seemed to be Bitty’s default whenever he wanted to get Jack to do something.

After a pause, Jack let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders relaxing with it. “Bitty I…thank you. Um…I know that was a lot to drop on you and I know you don’t know me…”

“I didn’t mind,” Bitty said. “Honestly. The most important thing is, did it help?”

“I think so,” Jack admitted. “I’m seeing my therapist tomorrow morning and we’ll talk about it. I um…there were emotions I didn’t realise were in there.”

“Do you think that’s why she suggested this? Talkin’ to a friend?” Bitty asked.

Jack shrugged. “I think so. I know I need to work through it, before I’m back on the ice and everything. And I don’t expect you to stand-in for therapy or anything. Um…”

“I’m not uncomfortable, Jack,” Bitty said, and reached over, touching his hand. “I get it. Been through it enough, you know? When I got diagnosed with PTSD I felt…really lost. I didn’t know what was going to trigger me, I didn’t know what I’d feel like from one moment to the next and…it was nice, when I found a support system. We’re friends, right?”

“Yes?” Jack replied, almost like a question, making Bitty smile. 

“That’s what friends do. I mean, not all the time. I’d love to grab dinner sometime where one of us doesn’t rush off to the bathroom to break down a little, but we can do that too, sometimes. If you need it.”

Jack bit his lip, but smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Bits.”

Bitty laughed. “You got it, hon. Anyway, we should finish up. I have to be at the shop at four tomorrow morning, and you look half dead on your feet.”

“I could use a good night’s sleep,” Jack admitted, taking a last bite of the milkshake before Bitty deposited the glass into the dirty dish tub, and led the way out.

Bitty lived round the corner from his shop, and Jack stopped at the kerb near the door to his building, and gave a pleasant laugh when Bitty launched himself over, dragging Jack into a hug. “Come by soon, okay? Sooner than two weeks from now?”

Jack chuckled, nodding as he gave Bitty’s back a pat. “I promise. Maybe this weekend, eh? I bet I can drag my dad in for something.”

“Oh lord, Bad Bob Zimmermann. My momma will just die.” And when Jack raised a questioning eyebrow, Bitty waved him off. “A story for another time, Mr Zimmermann, trust me. But text me soon, if you want. Even if you can’t visit, you can always say hi.”

“Thanks,” Jack said. Bitty got out of the car and disappeared into his building, and on the entire ride home, Jack had a smile on his face.

*** 

“You’re smiling.”

Jack’s lips turned down as he glanced over at his father who was smirking, his gaze fixed in front of him as he navigated the snowy streets. “So?”

“So,” Bob said, “I thought it was worth pointing out.”

“Because it’s a crime to smile now?” Jack muttered, but he felt his lips betray him as his phone in his pocket began to buzz. 

It was Monday, and Jack had spent both Saturday and Sunday at 10,000 hours either chatting to Lardo, or to Bitty when he wasn’t fielding the lunch rush. Jack was learning the routine of the shop, the way it would flood with customers, then empty and stay that way for hours. He was treated to anything and everything Bitty was cooking, and Lardo would bang him books she found interesting as she sorted through stock and reshelved.

When Jack left the shop, he would be bombarded through text by Bitty, who hadn’t been lying about how much he liked to talk. It worked for Jack, who preferred to listen over speaking—and although normally people eventually tired him out, Bitty seemed to energise him in a way he hadn’t experienced before.

He ignored his father’s smirk as he dug into his pocket.

**Finger-painting party at Lardo’s Tuesday night. You in?**

_I don’t know what that means._

Bitty sent several cry-laugh emojis. **You sweet, French-Canadian winter child. Come over. There will be wine—you don’t have to drink any of it, it’s just tradition. And there will be canvas and finger paints. John will be there for part of it. Um. If you want to meet him.**

Jack felt a strange twist in his chest at the idea of meeting Bitty’s boyfriend who didn’t really seem all that stellar of a person. But Jack wrote it off as being over-sensitive, considering his recent experiences. And he was certain this would be a good thing for him. Getting out, getting away from his parents, feeling normal again.

None of this had been in his routine in the past, but it was something good now, and he wanted it. _Count me in._

He pushed his phone back into his pocket just as Bob pulled up to the practise facility. Jack’s thigh began to ache at the thought of lacing up skates—in an anticipatory way, even though he was still barred from doing any physical activity. He was months away from being released to any sort of hockey-related anything, but Mario was asking him to show up to practises now, and of course Bob was Bob so he was insisting on being part of it.

Jack was outwardly annoyed, but the nervous child of Bad Bob Zimmermann still living under his skin sometimes was grateful for it. He only barely stopped himself from reaching out and squeezing his dad’s hand.

“Okay, Jack?”

Jack swallowed, then nodded. “Yes. Yeah. No press today, right?”

“Just social media interns doing stuff for their twitter,” Bob assured him.

Jack had yet to sit down to a single interview, and he knew he wasn’t ready for that yet. He’d spent years perfecting his media face, being able to field questions about his time in the Q, his relationship with Kent—which went to hell right after Kent had come out. He was able to deftly avoid getting emotional or upset when they would bring up the rumoured cocaine problems or whatever drug flavour of the month the gossip tabloids were coming up with that season.

But hearing the name Liam…he wasn’t sure he could do it, and he wasn’t sure they’d ask. Jack and Liam had been out, but private, and the last thing he wanted was invasive questions about the man he was in the middle of breaking up with when a truck crushed him to death.

He swallowed thickly, then grabbed his crutches from the back and followed Bob inside.

Most of the guys were already on the ice, and Jack debated about heading to his stall and checking things out. Mario insisted it was ready for him—his kit was hanging inside, his pads, stick, tape—everything he’d had shipped over from the Bruins’ locker room had been put into place. But he wasn’t ready for that, either. Knowing he was close—getting closer—but stepping on the ice again would be the official moment he moved on from…well…everything. It was the moment he would accept that his life was changed and there was no going back.

He offered his dad a tight-lipped smile as they wandered toward the rink. Mario was there, off in the distance giving a talk to someone with a lot of hand-gestures. Jack smiled, remembering that from when he was younger, being entranced by his uncle. Mario had always been stoic, but then he’d be at home with them and suddenly he was a different man—vivacious and bright, and it fascinated Jack who, from even such a young age could never be that way.

He blinked and saw Bitty’s face. Heard his laugh, felt the ghost of his hand squeezing Jack’s shoulder. It was like that, in a way. Only Bitty was brighter, and warmer, and sometimes Jack wished he could wrap up in his quiet southern drawl and just live there.

He startled when a hand fell on his shoulder, and his head turned to the side to see a tall woman with a wide grin. “Jack Zimmermann.”

He recognised her voice almost immediately, having had repeated conversations with her during his stint in hospital. “Georgia,” he said, and quickly extended his hand.

She shook it, smiling warmly at him, and didn’t release him right away. “When Mario said you were coming by, I had to be here.”

Jack rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly. “Ah. Yes I…sorry I didn’t show up before. It was just…”

“A lot,” she said, nodding sagely. “I get it, Jack. Trust me, no one’s trying to rush you. It’s not like you’re going to be kicked off the team because you need time to heal.”

Jack smiled at her, a small flush warming his cheeks. “Um, well. I am anxious to get back on the ice so…”

She laughed. “Oh I have no doubt. Trust me, Jack, I know all about you, and I’m really looking forward to when you’re back at full strength.”

*** 

Jack felt better after that, and sat for a while, chatting with a few of the guys as everyone ran through drills and plays. He texted Bitty intermittently, and it wasn’t until Sid and Geno were fucking around—Sid in the goal, Geno taking shots on him, that he finally snapped a photo with his phone.

He quickly sent it to Bitty. _New Pens goalie? How do you think we’ll do this season?_

The reply was almost instant. **Oh my lord. You tell that boy if he can block even one of Geno’s shots, I’ll make him two dozen maple cookies.**

Jack laughed, and stood up, leaning over the railing. “Sid!” When Sid turned, Jack cupped his hand round his mouth. “Remember the bakery with the maple frosted cookies?”

“Fuck yeah,” Sid shouted back.

“The baker says if you can block even one of Geno’s shots, he’ll give you two dozen. All yours.”

Sid’s eyes narrowed in a familiar frown. Jack knew the challenge, and saw the same look on Geno’s face. “What I’m get if I win?”

Jack shrugged. “I’ll ask.”

That led to a challenge, Bitty promising two dozen of anything Geno asked for if he won, and Jack was put on camera duty.

In the end, Sid managed to block just one, which left Geno cursing, and Sid crowing with laughter. Jack sent a text to Bitty, _Video’s too long, but Sid won. Geno’s furious._

**Tell him he’ll get a consolation prize since he has a nice face. He can tweet me what he wants.**

Jack relayed the message, which settled the argument as practise was finally over, and everyone began to head off the ice to get showered and prepped for the night’s game. Jack stayed on the bench, and smiled softly when his dad came to sit by him.

“Settling in?”

Jack shrugged. “Well as I can stuck on the bench.”

Bob sighed, then leant into Jack’s side carefully, his weight heavy and comforting. “You’re probably too young to remember when I broke my hip. It wasn’t even during a game. Just a misstep, and a bad tumble, and suddenly I was out for six months. It healed well, and the doctors told me it was a clean break and I shouldn’t have any trouble recovering. But I was told there was a chance I’d never play again, because there’s always a chance I’d never play again. That was inevitable—some day—in my future.”

Jack swallowed thickly and looked over. “I don’t think it’s my leg. I…maybe I’d be worse off if I knew now I’d never get back on the ice, but…” He hesitated, the words desperate, clawing at his throat. Part of him told himself to stop, intrusive thoughts that yelled at him, saying he shouldn’t burden his father with anymore since he’d been a burden enough. But he breathed through it, because he saw the soft look in his father’s dark eyes and he knew his dad wanted to help, wanted to know, wanted to _be_ there. “When Liam died, it put things into perspective. Made me realise losing hockey isn’t the worst thing.”

Bob’s face flickered through several emotions—some Jack recognised, some he didn’t. He settled for taking his son’s hand and squeezing. “My whole life I always wondered how much more I needed to do to be better. A better husband, a better father…”

“Papa,” Jack started, but Bob squeezed his fingers and he stopped.

“There’s always room to be better. There are a hundred thousand things I’d do differently if I could. Retire earlier, skip more nights out with the boys, take earlier flights home from roadies, call more. Spend more time laying with you and reading your favourite books. I don’t know that any of it would have made a real difference, Jack. Because you are who you are and I wouldn’t want you any other way. But if there’s something I did that’s making this harder…”

Jack shook his head, then swallowed past a lump in his throat so he could say, “I didn’t love him anymore, papa. Liam he…” He dragged a hand down his face, blowing out a puff of air. “He was cheating on me, and that woman’s pregnant with his baby.”

Bob sucked in his breath. “You’re certain?”

Jack stared at the ridges of his immobiliser and nodded. “We talked about it. He…said he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do. He wanted time. I wasn’t…I wasn’t going to give him any. I was ending it, when we were hit.”

“Jack,” Bob said, his voice strained, cracking.

Jack shook his head. “Not here, okay? Not…yet. I’m not ready. But I needed you to know because I don’t want you thinking that the reason I’m not…that the reason I’m like this,” he waved his hand up and down his body, “right now, with Liam dying—it isn’t anything you or maman did. Okay? It’s just…complicated.”

Bob nodded, then released Jack’s hand, though he didn’t move away. “So what now?”

“I don’t know,” Jack said. “At some point people are going to find out, and they’re going to ask me about it. I’m going to have to figure out how to deal with that when the time comes. Linda’s helping.”

“Good,” Bob said.

Jack hesitated, then said, “And so’s Bitty.”

“The…bookshop owner?”

Jack nodded. “He’s a good friend. I’m going with him and his boyfriend and some of their other friends on Tuesday to hang out. I…maybe I should focus more on hockey but…”

“Jack,” Bob said, and his grin was absurdly fond as he looked at his son. “I think of every hockey player in the world, you are due a small break from focusing more on the game.”

Jack couldn’t help a laugh as he nudged his dad’s side with his elbow. “I hate you.”

“No,” Bob said, and slung his arm round his son’s neck. “You love me a lot.”

Jack sighed as he pushed up and grabbed his crutches. But he gave one passing grin to his dad before heading toward the doors. “Yeah, papa. I guess I do.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Poor Jack-- so much pining and he doesn't even realise it yet!
> 
> Side-note: Personally, I hope that in Canon Bitty has a flawless and perfect coming out/support from his parents because I want Bitty to be happy and loved. But in fanon, I tend to use Bitty's parents to deal with my own experiences of having a bigoted, homophobic parent. It's not a reflection of how I feel about Suzanne and Coach as characters, more that their narrative lends itself to what a lot of queer kids deal with growing up in hostile environments.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Bitty's not so nice boyfriend who is not kind at all.
> 
> To answer a few questions: No, John is not Johnson. Bitty's boyfriend is an arse of the worst kind, and I'd never do that to our sweet metaphysical goalie. John is basically an amalgamation of every awful person I ever dated/went on dates with, so you can assume every shite thing that comes out of his mouth I've heard at some point IRL. But he's not the sum of one single person or experience.
> 
> I wrote half of this last night, and half this morning in a school lobby so if the consistency of the writing is off, that's why (and I am very sorry). Either way, I hope you like it. I'll try to get to answering comments asap, but I've fallen way behind and I'm sorry for that too <3

“It’s for sale you know.”

Jack jumped at the sound of a voice behind him, and flushed, grinning a little sheepishly as he rubbed at the back of his neck. Lardo slid up to him, her head not even clearing his shoulder, and she elbowed him in the ribs.

“It’s nice,” he said. He’d been staring at an abstract painting which was hanging on the bookstore side of the shop for the last five minutes. It almost looked like marble in a way, globs of colour melding into each other in orange, black, white, and red. It reminded him of giant koi fish kept in massive ponds. “There’s something about it…I don’t really know how to put words to it.”

“I’d offer you the family and friends discount, but rumour has it, you’re a multi-millionaire with a three year hockey contract with the Pittsburgh Penguins so…”

He laughed again, then shoved his hand into his pocket. “Do you take a personal cheque?”

“Fuck no,” she said with a laugh. “Get your ass to an ATM, Jacques.”

“Maybe before the painting party,” Jack said. He was somewhat apprehensive about it, for various reasons. People he’d never met before—loud ones by the way Bitty and Lardo talked about them. About sticking his hand into goopy paint because textures like that were difficult for him. The thought of the paint drying in his skin, too, all thick and tugging…

He shivered, and took a breath.

Then there was John—Bitty’s boyfriend. Jack had seen exactly one picture of him, when the man in question had phoned Bitty one afternoon while they were attempting to eat their weight in chocolate pies which had been a cancelled order. He was taller than Bitty, which in retrospect wasn’t hard to be. He had very pale skin, enough that under his eyes looked almost blueish. His hair was a dirty blonde, floppy over his forehead, and his features were slender, thin, mouth drawn in an almost scowling line, though Bitty was beaming next to him in the photo.

Jack wanted to ask what it was Bitty saw in him, but having spent years not even bothering to question Liam, he knew it wasn’t his place. Bitty saw what he saw, and it wasn’t Jack’s job to point out something that might not be there. And the truth was, he didn’t know John.

“You alright?” Lardo asked, nudging Jack with her toe.

Jack glanced down at her paint-stained chucks, then shrugged. “Yeah. It’s been a long day, is all. I’ve been going to practise more, which…I mean I’m not doing anything with my damn leg but…”

“Emotional labour,” she said.

Jack nodded, grateful she got it in so few words. Explaining himself was difficult most days, and here at the café Jack found a place he rarely had to do that. Not in the way he had to with most people. “I’m looking forward to tonight.”

Lardo’s face spread in a huge grin. “I’m glad. It’ll be nice to hang out outside the whole work shit.”

Jack chuckled, then looked back at the painting and tried to envision it hanging in his apartment which he planned to move into in a few weeks. “How much is the painting?”

“For you,” she said, tapping her chin in consideration. “Four hundred.”

“For anyone else?”

“Four twenty-five.” When he raised a brow, she shrugged. “I’m feeling generous. And you know, Zimmermann…I like you.”

He felt warm then, and soft all over.

*** 

Jack had gone home for a few hours to get a nap in, and woke only a minute before his alarm. He already had a flurry of texts on his phone letting him know the party was getting started without him, and Jack wasn’t sure if he felt better or worse about it. But he was rested, and dressed comfortably, and neither of his parents were up to chirp him about it.

He took his cane with him for the added aid, though his leg felt better and better every day, and he headed for his car.

The drive to Lardo’s wasn’t too far, and was actually closer to his apartment than the café was. He found space at a kerb up the block, and soon enough was stood at her door trying to coach himself into knocking. It only took a moment, reminding himself that most of these people liked hi, and at the very least Bitty and Lardo would be there if things started to get weird.

He was able to rap his knuckles on the wood once before the door flung open and a guy who looked like he could give Geno a run for his money answered. He was broad, pale, blonde hair, blue eyes squinting behind glasses, and a floppy undercut. He was wearing a blue and white striped tank top, and he gave Jack a slow up and down before he turned his head and shouted, “Bits, your famous hockey guy is here.” Then he offered out a fist-bump as he stepped aside. “I’m Adam but everyone calls me Holster.”

Jack blinked at him. “Hockey nickname?”

“Juniors, then NCAA,” Holster said almost lazily.

Jack relaxed almost immediately as he was led into the small space. Most of the furniture had been covered with white, paint-stained sheets, and the group of people were crowded round a massive piece of unframed canvas.

“Hey,” Lardo said, her head poking up. She was covered in paint from fingers to elbows, and a few smears on her cheeks. Jack’s skin began to itch at the thought, but he gave her a smile anyway. “You made it.”

“I did,” Jack said, and shoved his hands into his pockets.

Lardo gave him a long look, then said, “Bits is in the kitchen, because none of us can keep him away that long. If you wanna grab a drink or see if he needs help…”

He breathed out a sigh of relief, then went through a small doorway and into a kitchen barely the size of his walk-in closet. Bitty was frowning at something on the counter, but it melted into a smile the moment Jack walked in.

“Jack!” He flung his arms out, and Jack caught him, squeezing tight for a minute. “Have you been here long?”

Jack shook his head. “Lardo said something about drinks or help. Why…why aren’t you out there?”

Bitty gnawed on his bottom lip, then said, “John’s late. He just texted and said he might not make it and I just…” He shrugged, and the frown returned. “I have cupcakes, and some mini-pies ready.”

Jack stared at the long tray of sweets, then back at Bitty. “I don’t like finger painting,” he blurted, hoping maybe it would distract his friend from his disappointment. “I um…it’s a sensory thing.”

“Oh,” Bitty said, in a sort of tone that told Jack he was familiar with it. “Are you…is this okay? Being here tonight?”

Jack laughed. “Yes? I just…I’m not sure if I can do the…” He wriggled his fingers a little. “The sticky.”

“Oh, sweetheart, don’t you worry. Lardo has canvas and brushes,” Bitty said, now sounding excited, which was what Jack had been going for in the first place. “Come on, let’s get you some.”

“She won’t be bothered?”

Bitty gave him a tiny snort, and smacked him with the back of his knuckles on his forearm. “Lordy, it’s like smackin’ a brick wall.” He grinned and tugged on the hem of Jack’s shirt for a second, urging him to follow. “Tonight’s about havin’ fun, and if digging your fingers into paint isn’t gonna be fun, then what’s the point, right?”

Bitty was clearly familiar with what he was and wasn’t allowed to touch, because he dug into a narrow cupboard and came away with a framed, blank canvas, and a small bucket of brushes. They moved back to the group, most of them digging away into the paints, and Bitty set Jack up near the sofa so he could prop up the canvas and have access to the spread of colours.

Instead of joining the others on the floor, Bitty sat next to Jack. “D’you mind sharing?”

Jack couldn’t help another grin. “Well…I did grow up an only child,” he drawled.

“Oh my lord, Jack Zimmermann,” Bitty said with a huff. “So did I, but I still shared all my crayons with my desk-mates.” Bitty winked, then grabbed up one of the palettes. They were messy, which Jack didn’t love, but it was easier than knowing he’d be putting his hands in it. His first swipe across the rough canvas actually felt nice, a texture to it he could almost feel, and he relaxed as Bitty chattered away about his friends.

Formal introductions were never made, but he quickly learnt that Holster and Ransom—first name of Justin—were a couple. Holster was the frequent topic of some of Bitty’s wilder stories, including the roof jumping, which Holster was more than glad to show off his surgery scar.

“I wasn’t gonna make it in hockey,” Holster said, pulling up the leg of his khaki shorts. “Tore my ACL in juniors, but it was alright enough for Samwell. This kind of did me in, but it was totally worth it.”

“Bro,” Ransom said, and fistbumped his boyfriend. “Fucking Mary Poppins.”

The one next to Ransom in a bright orange tank top and an arm-band tattoo was called Nursey, who was currently teaching literature at the community college. “We’re missing C,” Nursey said. “And Farms.”

“And Dex,” Holster pointed out, which made Nursey scowl. 

Jack had met Dex before, and now putting a face to the names in all of Bitty’s stories had him relaxing in a way he hadn’t realised he was tense before.

“Then there’s just John,” Bitty said, and absently checked his phone again. When he frowned, Jack felt himself grow irrationally irritated. Any person who put that look on Bitty’s face was not okay in his book. He had come here determined to give this boyfriend a chance, but that was dwindling by the moment. He wanted to grab Bitty by his shoulders and insist he deserved better—but he also knew better than that.

Jack took comfort in the collective silence of the group when Bitty mentioned his name, and the way several of them frowned. He wanted to ask, but thought better of it as Bitty got up to fetch the cupcakes and pies.

Just as he was walking back into the room, his phone began to chime, and he nearly threw the tray of baked goods before answering it. “Hey, sweetheart. No, I’m still at Lardo’s. No. No we’re…yeah. Um…hang on, let me take this outside.” He shot everyone and apologetic look, then hurried out the front door, letting it slam a little on his way out.

After a beat, Ransom muttered, “Dick,” and there was a collective hum of agreement.

“I haven’t met him,” Jack said very carefully. 

Holster’s face, dark with anger, rolled his eyes. “Lucky you. The guy’s a total dipshit. Bitty could do so much better.”

“Yeah, except it’s totes not our place to go there with him,” Lardo said, pointing a painted finger at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Holster muttered. “But I swear to god, if he makes Bits cry one more fucking time…”

“Let’s not do this right now,” Lardo said pointedly, and Holster shut his mouth. When he was quiet, she sighed and turned toward Jack. “It’s complicated.”

“It’s always complicated,” Jack said, then shrugged. “I mean, what relationship isn’t.”

“Yeah,” Ransom chimed in. “Only complicated shouldn’t leave you crying yourself to sleep once a week, you know? It’s fucked.”

Jack bit the inside of his cheek to keep himself from saying anything stupid, but Bitty’s friends had finally confirmed for him one thing—John was not worth Bitty’s time. And by proxy, not worth Jack’s.

Ten minutes went by before Bitty finally came in, his face a little splotchy, though his eyes were dry. He let out a shaky laugh, then resumed his seat next to Jack, though he didn’t pick up his brush again. “Sorry, y’all. I…” He stopped, and stared at his hands. “Did I miss anything?”

There was a murmur, but not enough to put Bitty at ease so Jack leant forward and touched his shoulder. “We should finish this. You can hang it in the shop.”

Bitty looked up with bright yes, then snorted. “You’re not serious.”

“Come on. I’ll sign it, and I bet it’ll be worth something.”

“Full of yourself, aren’t you?”

Jack shrugged. “Hey, they pay me millions to shoot a puck into a net. Imagine what they’d pay for a Jack Zimmermann original.”

“Oh my _lord,_ ” Bitty breathed out, but he was grinning properly now, and Jack felt elated. “Fine, let’s do this. But you have to let me take a pic for the shop’s facebook.”

“Deal,” Jack said, and picked up the brush again. “But this isn’t a Zimmermann original.” He gave Bitty a long, slow look, then quirked a smile. “It’s a Zimmermann-Bittle.”

“This boy,” Bitty said with a huff, but picked up his own brush and dipped it into the paint.

*** 

By the end of the night, nearly everyone was covered in paint. The group, sans Jack, all had brightly coloured, painted on moustaches, and everything they’d done had been hung up to dry, and the group lounged round, half-drunk, sleepy, and nibbling on Bitty’s bakes.

Jack and Bitty were sprawled along the sofa cushions, shoulder to shoulder, their feet on the floor, and Jack was feeling slow and content and happy. Then there was a knock at the door, and Bitty stiffened as Lardo jumped up to get it.

The next moment was like a punch to the gut. The man from Bitty’s phone stepped in, and Bitty was suddenly away from Jack, and pressing a kiss to John’s cheek as John walked into the room, surveying the mess with a smirk.

“I think I’m glad I missed out on this one,” he muttered.

“Oh fuck you,” Holster said. “You just don’t know how to have fun.”

“By fun you mean acting like five year olds high on sugar,” John said, and elbowed Bitty. “You look ridiculous, Eric.”

The name Eric sounded so foreign, and Jack didn’t miss the way Bitty’s face fell before he sighed and said, “Oh, John. Honey, this is Jack. I told you, from the…”

“Falconers,” John said, his eyes fixing to Jack with laser focus. He stepped over a mostly dry paint palette and extended his hand.

For a split second, Jack considered refusing the hand shake, but his PR training kicked in before he could decide whether or not it was a good or bad idea, and he sat up, squeezing John’s fingers just this side of too tight. If John noticed, he didn’t say anything as he perched on the arm of the sofa, a space away from where Bitty had resumed sitting.

“Well,” John said after a moment of silence, “I’ve heard a lot about you. I mean, obviously, with the way Eric never shuts the fuck up about anything.”

“You’re so mean,” Bitty grumbled, trying for a smile, trying for playful as he smacked John on the calf.

John, unrepentant, shrugged. “Nice to have you in Pittsburgh though, man. I’ve been hoping one of the LGBT players would get close enough that I wouldn’t have to fly across the country to do a feature.”

“I’m probably not a good candidate right now,” Jack said, grateful his experience with the media had trained his neutral voice. There was no need to be hostile to Bitty’s boyfriend. At least, not right in front of him, not with Bitty making that face. “I’m not even on the ice, you know. And I’ve no idea what my playability is going to be like. Besides, Parse loves giving interviews more than anything…”

John got a slightly knowing smirk on his face, one that made Jack’s gut squirm uncomfortably. “Oh, I know. I did a short piece on him back when he first came out. He definitely likes interviews.”

Jack swallowed thickly, then looked at Bitty who was tapping on his phone. John noticed Jack’s gaze shifting, and he nudged Bitty with his knee so hard, Bitty almost toppled sideways. “Fucking twitter.” Bitty flushed and tucked his phone away, and Jack stared openly. “If it’s not tweeting or fucking _baking_ , it’s pestering me about marriage and shit.”

Jack noticed right then, nearly everyone had gotten up. The only person lingering was Nursey, who was stood in the doorway of Lardo’s bedroom. “We’re gonna…if you want, Bits?”

Bitty shook his head. “Nah. Y’all have fun. We’re probably going to take off in a few anyway.”

Nursey’s face constricted, then he let out a resigned sigh and closed the door. 

After a moment, Bitty looked at John. “You know, I don’t talk about marriage _that_ much.”

“Really?” John said with a snort, then looked at Jack with an expression like he expected solidarity. “Seriously, man. This one right here, always fucking sending me articles and shit about gay weddings.”

“I’m allowed to be excited that it’s legal,” Bitty groused. “I’m not trying to send you a message.”

“You know you want something lavish,” John carried on, ignoring the tinge of red on Bitty’s cheeks. “Some big southern bullshit with like white puffy tulle and roses and sweet tea.” He laughed as he rolled his eyes. “I should just go back to Vegas. I bet Parse would agree to some chapel wedding with like…Elvis. No fuss, none of that shit.”

Jack’s fingers began to shake, but Bitty merely rolled with the punches. “Whatever. Parse wouldn’t marry you anyway.”

“It’s true,” Jack said. “Parse would rather chop off a limb than tie himself down.”

“I guess you would know,” John said, winking. Then he shrugged and gave Jack a look up and down. “Too bad it was fucked for you two. I mean, the two of you are stupid gorgeous. You’re like…punch me in the face fucking beautiful.”

Jack never did well with compliments, and it turned out he didn’t do well with a man giving him a compliment like that, right in front of his own boyfriend. Bitty was trying to smile, it was tugging at his lips, but his eyes were troubled and pinched, and Jack wanted to hug him, to drag him out of the room and tell him he deserved so fucking much better than this.

“We should go,” Bitty said after a pause.

John jumped up. “Fuck yeah. I’ll get the car. Don’t take too long. You know how you get with your goodbyes. Nice to meet you, man.” He waved at Jack, then was out the door.

There was another tense silence, then Jack and Bitty rose and Jack looked at him carefully. “Are you okay?”

Bitty frowned. “What?” 

“Um well…he wasn’t being very nice,” Jack started.

Bitty let out a puff of air behind an, “Oh. Yeah. No, he’s just got a…weird sense of humour. Really, he…he loves me.”

It almost, almost sounded like a question.

Jack pushed past it. “See you later though?”

Bitty laughed, then dragged Jack in for a hug. “Come by soon, okay?”

“You know I will,” Jack said, hanging on a fraction longer than usual. Bitty eventually slipped out of his arms, and left without saying goodbye.

Stood in the empty living room, Jack waited until the door creaked open, and eventually Ransom came out with a puff of pungent smoke. He closed it, looking round with his brows dipped, then fixed his gaze on Jack.

“Fuckin’ left, didn’t he?”

Jack sighed, nodding. “Yeah. They had to euh…they had to go.”

“I fucking hate that guy,” Ransom said, collapsing in the seat Bitty had just vacated, and he dragged a hand down his face. “Bits is so fucking stubborn though, you know? Like you tell him don’t fucking do the thing, and he’ll do it out of spite. But keeping our mouths shut isn’t working, either. He just keeps letting this dipshit treat him like garbage and…”

“So it’s not just me, then?” Jack asked, and when Ransom lifted a brow at him, Jack said, “that thinks he’s a huge ass?”

Ransom nodded. “Nah, bro. It’s not just you. The guy is a huge ass. But we’ve tried everything, and Bits is determined or something, to like…try and see if this guy can act like a decent fucking human just once in his life. It’s better if we just keep our mouths shut and you know…be there to catch him when it all falls apart.”

Jack sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He knew what it was like, and as much as he wanted to just grab Bitty and shake him until he saw reason, he knew better. So he shrugged and said, “Well…I’ll be there too. Bigger net, eh.”

“Yeah,” Ransom said, then offered out a fist bump, and Jack gave it.

*** 

Jack felt a bead of sweat dripping down the length of his nose, and the ache in his thigh was felt bone-deep. But he pressed on, fuelled by the motivation in his PT’s voice as he pushed, and pushed. 

“Hell yeah,” Sam said, offering a high-five.

Jack gave a weak one as he eased the push-bar down, and let his legs fall to the side. He was exhausted, but the pain was less than it had been just days before, and he wasn’t letting himself get discouraged by how much more he used to be able to press.

He knew, because he’d been told, that it was damn near a miracle he could do this much just months after having his femur pieced back together, attached to a titanium rod.

Reaching for his towel, he swiped it across his face and leant back against the cushion of the upright bench. “I want to skate,” Jack said. When he saw Sam’s face dip into a frown, he held up a hand. “No contact, no drills. I just…want to skate.”

Sam bit his lip in thought, and Jack could see he was actually considering it. “I…” He took a breath. “Okay.”

Jack almost jumped up in triumph, but settled for a grin. “Seriously?”

“No contact, no drills, ten minutes a day, two days a week to start, and we’ll evaluate you in two weeks. If there’s any strain, you stop. Promise me, Jack. You said you wanted to play again, and I’m going to make that happen, but not if you push yourself.”

Jack nodded. He knew—not because it had been repeatedly lectured to him, though it had been—but because he had seen it before. Players who jumped back on the ice before they were ready and ruined everything. He wasn’t about that. He wasn’t ready to give up his career just yet.

“I want to play again,” he said. “I promise to take it easy.”

“Then let me write you a release. I want you under the full supervision of your team though. Those assholes will look after you better than anyone.”

Jack laughed, because it was true. He’d been in Pittsburgh now for two months, and although his team practises and games consisted of him in a Pens t-shirt and hat, sat on the bench doing nothing, it was at least team bonding. And some of these guys he’d known since he was a kid, and some of them almost longer.

They weren’t family—not really. But they were close.

As Jack walked out of the PT office, he was elated. He was still in a walking brace, and he wasn’t up to par yet—as much as he wanted to run, he couldn’t. But he wanted to celebrate. He should have gone home, should have showed his dad, demanded to head down to the arena right then and found a trainer who could supervise as he put his blades on the ice for the first time in too long.

But instead he found himself taking the familiar turns toward the café, toward Bitty, who had been sending him photos of pies all morning. Bitty, who was quickly becoming his best friend, who had arranged a move-in party that coming weekend, because Jack was going to be living in his own apartment for the first time since the accident, and Bitty didn’t want him doing it alone.

Just before he reached the door, Jack pulled out his phone and sent a quick text off to Linda. _Just cleared for ice time. Twenty minutes a week._ He shoved his phone back into his pocket, and walked into the café, immediately soothed by the familiar warmth and smells.

His eyes flickered to the wall near the pastry counter where the painting he’d done with Bitty hung. It was listed for sale, a small yellow tag on the edge with the price, and though Jack had seen people inquire about it, there had never been a sale.

Not that he minded. He liked seeing it here, and he secretly hope that’s where it stayed. He glanced up and saw Bitty smiling at him, pointing to an empty table, and Jack eased himself down, grateful to be off his leg for a bit. Therapy was going well, of course, but he was still aching and knew he would be for a long time.

Luckily the shop had just cleared of the lunch rush, so Bitty was able to cobble together a couple sandwiches, then collapse across from Jack as he pushed a plate across the table at him. “Lord have mercy, what a day,” he groaned.

“Long one?” Jack asked.

“Besty, my favourite oven? She’s on the fritz and even Dex can’t seem to get her to stay on long enough so I’m going to have to call someone and deal with that. The espresso machine had a leak which left a waterfall of boiling water on the counter, and then we got hit with a tour bus full of retirees who wanted all their food _right now_ but all custom ordered, and I just…”

Jack reached over, giving Bitty’s shoulder a squeeze. “Sorry, bud.”

Bitty looked up with a happy blush. “Yeah well…a day in the life of food service, right? Anyway how was your PT. Tell me it was good, okay? I need good news. Just…lie if you have to.”

Jack couldn’t help his smile as he leant forward, almost conspiratorially. “I got cleared for ice time.”

“What?” Bitty shouted, and jumped up, flying into Jack’s lap to hug him. “Oh my god, sweetheart! That’s amazing! When? How much? Lord, tell me you’re not lettin’ those boys bash you into the boards yet!”

Jack laughed, squeezing Bitty’s waist a little before he slid back into his own chair. “Nothing serious. Twenty minutes a week for the first two weeks, then we evaluate. No contact at all, but it has to be with the team. After that, they might let me get a little more free-skate in. As long as I don’t push it.”

“You have better not, Jack Laurent,” Bitty warned.

Jack held his hands up in surrender. “I’ll be good. Swear.”

“Scouts honour?” Bitty questioned.

Jack laughed again. “Bits, I was too busy trying to one-up every one of Sid’s records in Juniors. I didn’t have time for scouts.”

Bitty snorted. “Well I was too gay, and too busy looking at livejournal blogs dedicated to Justin Timberlake’s cute butt to bother with scout stuff. But really, I’m happy for you, Jack. Actually…” He hesitated, then said, “Okay this is…lord, I don’t even want to ask you, but John said it would be a good idea.”

Jack felt himself stiffen. In the two months he’d been here, he’d only seen John a handful of times, and each time it had been John badgering Bitty to leave whatever activity Bitty was doing, and then things would go quiet for hours and hours.

He didn’t want to do that man any favours, but Bitty looked hopeful so he sighed and said, “Go ahead, it’s fine.”

“It’s just…so he has this friend, Kate? And she’s so nice, and real cute, and he was thinking you might want to double with us some night. Like…double date?”

Jack blinked, feeling a strange sensation squirming in his gut. He couldn’t put a name to it—he’d never felt like that before, but it was uncomfortable. Still, Bitty was staring, wide-eyed and there was so much hope there, Jack couldn’t bring himself to say no. “Okay, why not. I can’t make promises though, Bits. I’m…I don’t exactly have a stellar dating history.”

“It’s fine. Just…I think it’ll be fun, and John always loosens up around her. It’ll be a chance to get to know the real him,” Bitty said.

Jack wasn’t so sure about that. He wasn’t inclined to believe the rude, cold man John was around Bitty’s friends was a faux persona at all. But he wasn’t going to step out of his lane, either. “Well, you know I’m free apart from practise, and a couple home-games this week I have to sit in on. But there’s nothing Sunday, and the team’s on a five day roadie after that.”

Bitty nodded, then nudged Jack’s foot with his own under the table. “We’ll have fun, Jack. I promise. I’ll set it up right after we get you moved in, okay?”

Jack’s uncomfortable mood shifted, and he nodded, unable to help smiling back. “Okay. Thanks again for that.”

“No worries. You know me, any excuse for housewarming—and the boys are excited to christen the place with terrible beer and bad decisions.” 

Jack rolled his eyes, but the grin across his face was fond. He wasn’t entirely better—he still had nightmares, and he still felt an empty ache in his chest every time he thought of Liam and what could have been—what should have been. But there was more now, so much more, and it was hard not to feel at least a little bit happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Flatwarming party, Jack's first skate, and awkward double-dates. 
> 
> Semi spoiler?: John's friend Kate is actually an amazing person. No femme-bashing in this fic!
> 
> This fic will have SOME Jack/OFC, but I'll put warnings there, and reminder that this is happy!ending Zimbits so anything you read is short-lived and temporary.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will probably be another big delay between this chapter and the next until I get my head sorted out. Side note, I haven't used English in about four days so if any of this sounds wonky, that's why. That, plus not sleeping more than maybe 10 hours total since Thursday. So for that I'm sorry if it's just rubbish.
> 
> I should be back to posting regularly soon.

“You seem more on edge today than usual,” Linda pointed out near the end of their session. Jack appreciated the way she did that. It was easier for him to acknowledge if he was more keyed up when the session was over, otherwise he’d become fixated and leave feeling like he made no progress.

She wasn’t wrong, of course, only Jack knew why. “I am,” he admitted. “I’m moving into my place this afternoon. My parents are being a little…” He trailed off with a shrug.

“They’re being parents?” she offered.

He laughed. “Something like that. I know why. I know the accident pulled my parents back into that place years ago after the overdose and…” He licked his lips, letting out a tiny breath. “There’s less guilt this time because it wasn’t my fault. And I know they’re trying, but I still feel a little guilty, like I owe them more time with me.”

“Do you think you’d benefit from it?” she asked.

Jack snorted. “No. I think it’ll be an adjustment, but when they’re there, I’m so worried about making sure _they_ don’t worry, that I get…stuck.”

She nodded, making a couple notes on her paper, then she shut her book, set it on the table, and leant forward. “In my professional opinion, I think getting into your own space is going to be difficult, and maybe a little scary because everything has changed, but ultimately I think you’re ready for it. In my not-so professional opinion, I think it’s a damn good idea, because you need space to be yourself and not have to worry about mom and dad putting boundaries on you—even if they don’t really mean to. You’re not a kid anymore, Jack, and I think you’re ready to move on.”

Move on seemed like such a heavy concept, one that he could feel weighing down his chest. But he had to agree with Linda. He was ready, and he was anxious to take that step.

He was still on edge after leaving the session, but he felt better all the same. His parents were waiting for him, their cars both filled with whatever boxes he was taking with them, and they’d be staying for dinner after his friends showed up.

That, in itself, had been only the smallest argument when Alicia had said, “Forgive us, sweetheart. We just want to get to know the people who you’ve been spending time with.” And before Jack could balk and insist he wasn’t a child, and certainly didn’t need his friends _vetted_ , she said, “It’s not often something becomes as important to you as hockey, and we just…want to see. Soon enough your dad and I will be back in Montreal and we’ll never see you. Indulge us.”

It was a little pushier than Jack wanted to deal with, but at the same time he also felt a sudden need to share this with his parents. To introduce them to the people he’d surrounded himself with, to show his parents he was capable of being something other than Jack Zimmermann, Hockey Prince.

He was tempted to stop by 10,000 Hours and give them all a head’s up, but instead he went home, but paused after switching the car off and pulled up Bitty’s name on his phone.

**Just an FYI, my parents are going to be there tonight. They want to meet you guys. Fair warning, my dad is going to rope you into baking. He thinks he’s a five-star chef.**

Within a minute, Jack got a string of cry-laugh emojis, and then a reply. _Cooking with Bad Bob Zimmermann. Trust me, I’m not going to turn it down. I hope your kitchen is prepared._

Jack actually had no idea if his kitchen was prepared. He had a four day window to move to Pittsburgh, and he’d given his mother the okay to find him an apartment, and hire someone to outfit it with the essentials. His old condo hadn’t even been packed when the accident occurred, and he was only half sure his parents had taken care of that. He wasn’t sure what he was going to walk into when they got there.

Jack managed to wrangle his parents out the door soon after he was home with the promise that his friends would be over soon. Bob looked far too excited, and although Alicia kept her outward enthusiasm to a minimum, he could see it in the flush on her cheeks. He was annoyed, of course, but touched and he knew well enough to be grateful that his parents loved him this much.

The drive wasn’t long, and traffic could have been worse, and soon they were parked near his building and carefully hauling boxes into the lift. Bob wouldn’t let Jack do much, so he led the charge, put his key in the lock, and stepped inside.

It was a strange sense of accomplishment and release to take his first step into the flat. It was symbolic, he supposed, of moving forward and accepting his life. This homecoming would have gone differently, had he taken a different path. He would have reached his apartment the night of the accident, possibly with Liam on his arm.

Maybe they would have talked on the sofa Alicia had picked out, and tried to work through their problems. Maybe Liam wouldn’t have bothered coming up at all, and would have taken an Uber to a hotel. Maybe they would have made up, and made promises they couldn’t keep, and curled up in the brand new bed together with a hope of a future he knew they’d never reach.

But it wasn’t like that now.

Liam was dead. He’d never set foot here, he’d never go through the packed up boxes for things that belonged to him. He’d never get the choice between staying with Jack, or moving on.

Jack swallowed thickly, and walked into the living room where a stack of boxes stood next to an empty bookshelf. The place was impersonal, of course, like a blank canvas waiting to be filled up with bits of evidence of the man Jack was, and maybe the man he was becoming. 

He ran his hand over the thick block letters written in sharpie. **LIVING ROOM**.

“We took the liberty of unpacking the kitchen,” Alicia said as she came out through the small kitchen door. “But the rest is up to you. We weren’t sure what stuff was yours and what was…” She stopped, still unwilling to say Liam’s name. Jack didn’t blame her.

“Thank you, maman. I can handle it later, and I’m sure the others will give me a hand.”

She looked at him a long moment, then smiled and gave his cheek a fond pat before helping Bob with the last of the boxes.

*** 

It was near an hour before there was a knock at the door. Jack had a string of texts on his phone which had pre-warned him about the arrival of his friends, but there was still a slight pool of anxiety sitting low in his gut when he crossed to the door and opened it.

He was unsurprised to find Ransom and Holster leading the charge, carrying cardboard boxes which Jack could only begin to guess what was inside. They muscled past, and Jack heard them exclaim, “It’s fuckin’ true! The Zimmermanns…” Then overlapping each other with loud recounting of both Bob’s most amazing fights, and Alicia’s most amazing movies.

Jack only paid that a second of attention as Lardo breezed past, with a canvas in her hands, though it was facing toward her. “Hey,” she said, grinning at him. “We come bearing gifts, baked goods, and a baker who wouldn’t shut the fuck up about it the entire drive.”

And then there was Bitty. Bitty, who made Jack’s stomach unclench, and who made Jack smile at the sight of his big brown eyes and tiny quirk of his lips.

“Hey,” Bitty said.

Jack sighed out a, “Hey,” as he closed the door. His eyes flickered down to Bitty’s hands which were also occupied by a canvas, and he frowned. “What’s that?”

“Oh just one of the most prestigious paintings available on the market today,” Bitty said, and then with a grin and flourish, turned it round to reveal the piece he and Bitty had done together that night at Lardo’s.

Jack blinked a few times. “What…I thought you were…selling it.”

Bitty handed the painting off to Lardo, then dug into his pocket for something. “I did, in fact. To the only person who would appreciate it more than you.” He grinned widely. “Me. And here’s your half. Five whole Canadian dollars. And look! Ransom got me one that has hockey players on it.”

The note was pressed into Jack’s hand, and his eyes went soft and a little warm as he stared at the soft blues, and the faded images on the back. He couldn’t help his smile widening, even as his parents came into the room and demanded more introductions, and to see what everyone had brought along with them.

It wasn’t long before they were all sharing some of the pies Bitty brought with them, and Alicia stood between Ransom and Holster, looking very small but imposing as ever as she and Lardo decided the best place for both paintings. The one Lardo had brought—the one Jack had been eyeing since he’d come to the shop, was going above his sofa.

Jack had attempted to protest, attempted to pay her, but she just smacked him on the arm and said, “Shut the fuck up, Zimmermann. This is what friends do for each other.”

Jack couldn’t really find the words, so he just put one arm round her and squeezed. After that, Bob managed to talk Bitty into joining him in the kitchen where he had a spread of baking ingredients, and it wasn’t long before a snap story was happening of Bob learning how to make the perfect lattice crust.

Jack watched, from his spot by the door, arms crossed, shoulder braced against the firm wood. His mother stood by him, a glass of wine in her hand, a gentle grin across her face. “I like them.”

Jack huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. They’re…different. But I like them too.”

“They’re good for you,” Alicia said, then leant in a little closer. “Especially that Eric. He’s got your father charmed already.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “That’s not exactly hard to do, maman. Papa’s charmed by almost everything.”

Alicia hummed, her mouth drawing into a thin line, then she said, “Except by people who make you unhappy. He tries, of course.”

There was a weight to her words, but Jack wasn’t really to deal with it right then, so he just leant into her slightly and sighed. “Thank you.”

“You never have to thank us for loving you, mon p’tit coeur.”

Jack didn’t entirely feel like that was true, but he knew better to argue with her, so he simply nodded and went on watching the impromptu baking show in his kitchen.

*** 

Bob and Alicia eventually left, and Jack found himself on the sofa with Bitty while Lardo, Rans, and Holster were pulling books out of the boxes stacked near his empty shelves. They were chirping him on his preferences, nearly all of them either historical fiction, or historical non-fiction.

Jack was smiling, rolling his eyes and flipping them off at regular intervals as Bitty went on about some cookbook his moomaw had given him with recipes from the early 1900s when Jack’s phone buzzed with a pattern telling him there was an alert on his calendar. 

Not really thinking, he pulled his phone from his pocket and flicked the screen open. Suddenly, as he glanced at the notification, the smile on his face felt stretched, plastered, painful. 

_Liam’s Birthday is coming up. Would you like to place the usual auto-order of flowers? Yes No_

Jack’s fingers began to tremble, and his breath felt stuck in his chest, and he felt himself pushing to his feet before he was really aware of it. He headed for the small terrace because it was the closest door, and he let himself out. The shock of air hit him full in the face, and his knees buckled. Jack braced his back against the wall and slid down, the phone still dangling from his fingers, his head spinning.

How. After this many years, how had he forgotten Liam’s birthday was coming up? How had he forgotten to…to change all of his alerts, to change his routine. Everything was different, and suddenly there was this vicious reminder that there was no going back and…

“Jack?”

Jack couldn’t bring himself to look over, even if he’d been given an almost raw comfort at the sound of Bitty’s voice. He worked his throat, trying to make a noise, but he couldn’t.

The door shut with a small click, and Jack could hear Bitty’s feet as he walked over, and sat down close enough to touch, but not quite making contact yet. “Do you want me to go?”

With almost herculean effort, Jack managed to shake his head.

“Do you want me to talk to you?”

Another moment, more effort, and a nod.

Bitty hummed, then eased himself next to Jack so their knees pressed together, and he started to launch into the story of The Great Jam Feud between the Bittles and Phelps.

Jack didn’t entirely process what Bitty was saying, but the gentle southern drawl was like a balm on his frayed nerves. He closed his eyes and let the words wash over him, keeping him present, reminding him that although things were different, they weren’t so bad he couldn’t come out of it. Liam was dead, there was no changing that, but he was working through his feelings.

It took him a moment to realise Bitty had gone quiet, and he managed to look over to find Bitty watching, his head cocked to the side, eyes wide.

“You with me, sweetpea?”

Jack swallowed, then nodded. “Yeah I…sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t you dare,” Bitty said, and carefully reached over, curling his fingers lightly over Jack’s wrist. “You have nothin’ to be sorry for, hear me?”

Jack let out a small laugh. “I hear you.”

Bitty nodded, then said, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Jack drew his lip into his mouth, considering for a long while, and decided if anyone would be safe to talk to, it was Bitty. Bitty, who had been his sounding board, and had been the first person Jack had really told about what happened between him and Liam. Bitty, who was unwavering in his friendship, even when it was obvious his own personal relationship wasn’t stellar.

Jack felt like he owed Bitty a better friend, but he was grateful Bitty was there to accept him as he was. “Liam’s birthday is coming up in a few days. My phone chimed a reminder to send him flowers. That’s…what I did every year.”

Bitty’s fingers squeezed reflexively, and he sighed. “Oh, honey…”

“I…” Jack stopped a moment, gathering his thoughts. “I wasn’t a great boyfriend. Not that…not that I deserved all the cheating and…and everything. I didn’t. I know that. But flowers. The same flowers, every year, like it was just another button I’d push on my phone, and another vase which would eventually end up in a cupboard, and how impersonal is that? I wasn’t fair to him either.”

Bitty didn’t seem to know what to say, which was fair, and Jack didn’t expect him to.

“The boxes,” Jack carried on, “some of that is his stuff. My parents brought it all up after the accident, when I was still recovering.” He rubbed his hand over the top of his thigh, swearing for a second he could feel the rod under his skin, even though he knew it was impossible. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it. To look at all that stuff, to…” His voice trembled, and he cleared his throat. “It feels wrong that I’m the one who gets to decide what stays and what goes.”

“Maybe,” Bitty said, his voice careful and slow, “you don’t decide. Maybe you box up what’s his and send it to someone better suited for the job.”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut and nodded. “Okay.”

Bitty’s hand trailed from Jack’s wrist, to his hand, and linked their fingers together. It was grounding, and easy, and Jack felt his breath coming lighter. “If you want help, honey, you just say the word. I can schedule in some time when we’re both free, and we can take care of it together.”

Jack’s eyes opened, and he looked at Bitty curiously. “I’m such a shit friend, Bittle. Why are you so nice?”

“Well, you’re not, and I’ll thank you not to call yourself that again,” Bitty chastised, and then squeezed Jack’s fingers harder. “And secondly, it doesn’t matter how badly you fucked up, or think you did. You’re a person, and you’re worthy of love and friendship, Jack. And I’m more’n happy to give you both.”

*** 

Jack didn’t really have time for the boxes—and it was less avoidance and more that he was given more ice time and the okay to start light drills with his team. He’d played against the Pens for a lot of years, and had spent half that time watching tape and studying the way they moved, so blending in and adjusting his game to mesh with theirs was easier than he expected.

He knew it would be different once he was given full contact, and more than twenty-minutes at a time. But it was nice to be with the guys, to start feeling accepted and part of something. They weren’t too soft with him, but they were also protective. Fiercely so. They prevented press from asking awkward questions, they kept the chirps impersonal, and no one—not once—mentioned Liam’s name.

Liam’s boyfriend passed without incident, and was largely unspoken, even if Bitty and the others showed up with pie and take-away and Cutting Edge which they all provided commentary. Even if he got a few looks, and was given a bigger piece of pie than anyone else.

Jack appreciated it, appreciated his friends more than he could say, and he wasn’t sure if he was any good at expressing that, but they all seemed to accept him exactly as he was.

“So,” Bitty said, leaning over the back of the empty chair at the table Jack was occupying, “about that double date…”

Jack blinked at him. He’d forgotten what he agreed to weeks before, and John was so often a non-entity in their group that Jack could, at times, ignore his existence. But Bitty was stood there now, his apron a mess, his cheeks pink with excitement, bouncing on his toes a little.

“Double date,” Jack echoed.

“So Kate’s a huge hockey fan—she’s a Canadiens fan, actually, and I just noticed the Pens are playing them on Thursday…” Bitty let the sentence trail off, and Jack let it hang there for a few minutes.

“You think just because I’m on the team, I’ll get you tickets,” he said, his voice deadpan. It wasn’t until uncertainty flickered in Bitty’s eyes that Jack realised he’d missed the chirp. “I’m joking, Bittle. What did you have in mind?”

Bitty’s shoulders deflated a little. “Well…so. I was thinking maybe we could all go to the game. I’m not sure what the rules are for you since you’re not in the line-up but you’re on the team.”

“Normally I sit with them, but I can probably get us seats close enough. It should be fine since I’m scratched til the end of the season.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck, chasing away the anxiety of having to spend several hours in John’s company.

Bitty smiled widely. “Perfect. So then maybe dinner after?”

Jack felt some measure of relief that Bitty wasn’t asking to meet the team—or get this Kate person a one-on-one with any of the Habs. A game and dinner sounded safe enough, and although Jack wasn’t entirely looking forward to the whole thing, he was willing to give it a chance. His friendship with Bitty earnt at least that much.

“Okay so…Thursday,” Jack said, and he punched the date into his phone. “We can take my car and use staff parking. I’ll call George about some passes so we can avoid the main lobby.”

“I knew there were perks to you, Jack Zimmermann.” Bitty winked, then squeezed Jack’s shoulder as he headed back behind the counter.

Jack could still feel the warmth where Bitty had touched him, and he smiled a little as he got back to his book, and his piece of pie.

*** 

Getting the tickets and badges were easy enough, and Jack was only slightly on edge when he showed up to Bitty’s. The three of them were waiting at the kerb, Bitty looking excited, and John talking animatedly to a dark-haired woman a few feet away. As Jack came to a stop, he watched a small discussion take place, then Bitty climbed into the front, and the other two settled in the back seat.

“Hey,” Jack said, nodding at them as he turned round slightly.

“We’ll make proper introductions when we get to the arena,” Bitty said, waving his hand. “But Kate, this is Jack. Jack, Kate.”

Jack smiled at her, and though she looked somewhat apprehensive, she smiled back. “Am I going to get murdered for my Habs shirt?” she asked, and opened the front of her jacket to reveal a red t-shirt with the Habs logo.

Jack snorted. “Maybe not murdered, but I might be if the Pens lose tonight and they find out who I brought with me. Maybe keep your jacket closed if we meet any of the guys.”

Kate snickered, and didn’t do up any of the buttons as Jack turned back round, and headed out.

Luckily the drive wasn’t too bad, and it was nice swiping into the carpark instead of dealing with the public parking. Kate and John spent a lot of time chatting, and Jack bristled at how quickly Bitty had been forgotten, but he didn’t seem to mind. He chirped Jack when Styx came on the radio, and relayed a few of the texts he’d sent to Rans and Holster who were apparently jealous.

When they got out, John stuck close to Kate’s side, and didn’t really give a lot of opportunity for Bitty to walk next to his boyfriend, or for Jack to meet his apparent date.

It was just before warm-ups as they took their seats, and just as Jack was getting settled, John rose. “I’m getting drinks. Babe, you buying?”

Bitty flushed, but nodded. “Oh, sure thing, hun. What does everyone want?”

Kate gave her order, but Jack waved him off with an, “I’m fine, but use your badge. They’ll give you a discount.” He felt an edge of annoyance that John insisted Bitty do this. Jack could have easily picked up the tab, and it almost felt personal.

They were gone, however, not long after, and Kate stared at him for a moment before sliding over into the seat Bitty had vacated. “So,” she said, looking him up and down.

Jack’s lip quirked. “So. It’s nice to meet you. Um. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

She laughed. “I’m sure. I’ve known Bitty since he and Jay started dating, and I think it’s pretty obvious how much that boy likes to talk.”

Jack felt his hackles rise. “I like it.” He stopped himself, realising he almost sounded like a jealous boyfriend, and that’s not what this was. “I mean…I just. He’s a good friend. A very good friend.”

Kate shook her head. “That’s not what I meant. I love Bits so much. His blabbering is endearing.”

Jack felt his face relax into a slight smile. “Yeah, it is. He’s…been…” He didn’t even really have words for what Bittle had been to him since he moved to Pittsburgh. “Things have been rough, and he and the others at the shop um. They help.”

“Yeah,” she said. “I love those guys. I moved a couple months back and not getting to pop by during the week really fucked with my routine. Lardo’s basically my favourite person in the entire world.”

Jack chuckled, nodding. “I didn’t expect to find people like them, you know? My whole life has been hockey so all of this has been…” He shrugged.

“I get it, man.” She eased back into her chair just as the lights went down and music began to play. A few minutes later, both teams took the ice, and Jack got a couple of nods from the guys, and a few winks. 

“They’re going to chirp me for days,” Jack muttered as Geno made a rude gesture with his stick.

Kate couldn’t help a laugh. “I can see that. Do you like it here? I mean…not that you’ve really gotten to play but…”

“It’s not bad,” Jack admitted. “It’s taking some adjustment, but they’ve been really good about the uh…whole injury thing.”

Kate gave him a careful look. “Okay so,” she stopped, hesitated, then said, “fuck it. I know, okay? Like, Bits didn’t give me details, but he sort of told me a little about what happened with the accident and shit and I just…I’m sorry. I figured I’d say it now so we can let it get weird early on, then move past it.”

Jack was startled a little, but found himself smiling in spite of the situation. “Thanks,” he said.

And then Bitty and John returned with their drinks. Kate remained by his side, in spite of John’s annoyed expression, and it wasn’t long before the game was underway. Kate cheered quietly every time Price blocked a goal, but her enthusiasm wasn’t enough, and the Habs fell to the Pens by two.

They made it out of the arena and down the employee corridor to avoid the crowds, though Jack half considered offering to take them to meet the team, there was a strange tension between Bitty and John that kept Jack’s mouth shut. Instead he let Bitty punch in the address to the restaurant to his GPS, and they took a quiet car ride to get their dinner.

Which, it turned out, wasn’t much better.

John got a few drinks in him, and the atmosphere became more chatty, but his sharp-edged humour—as Bitty called it—didn’t get any softer.

“I mean,” John said, waving his beer bottle a little, “I work in the community, you know? So I meet all types and it’s not like I want to ever say that stereotypes are a bad thing, but I will say that Eric is the _gayest_ dude I’ve ever dated. I mean…dancing to Beyonce, owning a bakery…”

Kate shifted, and when John jumped, Jack realised she’d kicked him. “Can you please stop being such a dick to Bits?”

John snorted, leaning into her slightly. “Oh relax. Eric knows I’m joking.”

“It’s just his humour,” Bitty echoed, the same words he’d told Jack earlier, but there was less conviction to them.

“I think a lot of that attitude is why there’s still so few out players in sport,” Jack said, feeling a sort of hot annoyance burning in his gut. “This fear that acting a certain way will make a person _too gay_ or whatever. I mean, I shouldn’t have to go my dad’s route and drop gloves to prove my manhood just to be taken seriously at hockey. No one is too gay to be anything. I mean, it’s all well and good to make a joke, but it doesn’t help anyone. Especially not the community you’re working in.”

Bitty’s eyes went wide, and Kate pressed the tips of her fingers to her lips as John stared hard. Then he laughed. “Holy fuck. I mean, that’s quality soundbite shit right there, Jack. Seriously. Everyone’s afraid to tell it like it is. I say shit to Eric and he just shakes in his little shoes. Maybe I should marry him, babe? Let him push me around.”

Bitty flushed hard, and tried for a smile. He managed a little, “Haha,” but there was no actual humour to it.

Jack grit his teeth, feeling frustrated at the way John twisted his words, at the way John felt like it was okay to treat Eric like that in front of his friends. He glanced at Kate who was staring resolutely into her drink, but she looked up after a second and locked eyes with Bitty.

“You wanna grab another drink with me, B?”

Bitty nodded, following Kate to the bar, and they stayed there for a good, long while.

*** 

Jack replayed the date in his head more times than he cared to admit. So much so that it became the topic of his next therapy session. Linda did her best to walk him through it, but Jack’s emotions were still a mess.

“I care about him, and I don’t want people to treat him like that. But I don’t feel like it’s my place to say anything,” he admitted.

Linda bit her lip for a minute, then said, “You sound like you’re taking this personally, Jack. Not that it’s a bad thing. You’re allowed to care deeply about your friends, and want the best for him. And although I can’t play therapist to Eric or his current situation, I can say it doesn’t sound like he’s in the healthiest of places with his boyfriend.” She tapped her pen on her pad of paper, then said, “Do you think you feel strongly because you care about Eric, or because maybe you relate on a personal level.”

Jack blinked. “I…hadn’t thought.”

“Well it might be something to mull over. If it’s one or the other, or if it’s both, it’s okay. There’s no right or wrong answer here. But figuring it out might help you when it comes time to talk to Eric about how you feel.”

“You think I have to?” Jack asked softly.

Linda shrugged. “No. Jack, you don’t have to do anything. But I think holding something inside like this isn’t going to do you any favours, and I think—considering what you’ve told me about Eric—he’ll be receptive to anything you have to say. Whatever else there is, I think you have a strong bond, and that’s important.”

Jack nodded, but that didn’t entirely sit right in his gut. It felt like something more, something different. It had been too long since he’d felt this way about anyone, and he’d be more than happy to explore it more except his head was still a mess.

“Next week,” he finally said.

She smiled at him. “Next week.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll try to remember to put this on tumblr when I get back home x


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter's a bit shorter than most, but we're edging toward the climax of things, I suppose. I have almost exactly four weeks off before I have classes, and I'm taking a fairly full term this autumn so I've no idea what writing is going to be like for me. So...my plan is to get every WIP sorted, and the handful of prompts I had promised some people ages ago to be done before the end of August.
> 
> No specific warnings for this chapter apart from mentions of grief and anxiety.

**How busy are you right now?**

Jack realised the text had been sent hours ago, and a rush of guilt hit him like a wave, even though he knew none of that was his fault. He’d had a session with Linda that morning, then afternoon skate, followed by a team meeting, and dinner at Sid’s. But the feeling that he’d missed something possibly important, the idea that Bitty might have needed him and he wasn’t there, made him feel almost sick to his stomach.

He gripped the wheel of his car with one hand, and punched Bitty’s name on the screen. It rang. And it rang. His breathing hitched, and there was a moment of silence just before sound, and Jack thought for a second it was voicemail until Bitty’s voice came on the line, a little softer than usual.

“Jack.”

“Bits,” Jack said, feeling an almost visceral relief to hear from him. “Hey. Are you okay? I’m so sorry I missed your text.”

Bitty let out a small laugh, sounding tired but fine. “It’s alright, hun.”

“Sounded like you might need something, though,” Jack pressed. He tended not to ignore feelings like this in his gut, even if half the time it was nothing more than his anxiety.

“I…” Bitty hesitated. “It was a rough day. John and I got into a dang fight, and I couldn’t concentrate at work, so Dex and Nursey took over for me. But I realised bein’ alone was the worst thing.”

“Oh,” Jack said, and felt even worse. “Shit, I’m so sorry. Today was so busy and…”

“Jack,” Bitty interrupted. “I don’t expect you to rearrange your life for me, okay? Kate picked me up later that afternoon and we had a late lunch and a drink, and I feel better.”

Jack let himself breathe, nodding in spite of knowing Bitty couldn’t see him doing it. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. Do you need anything now?”

There was another moment of quiet, then Bitty said, “Are you home?”

“I’m just leaving Sid’s. We had a team dinner—cap duties and everything. My phone was in the car, that’s why I didn’t see your text.”

“I wouldn’t mind a little company,” Bitty said. “I could come hang at yours if you…”

“Yes,” Jack said, not letting him finish. “Do you want me to pick you up?”

“Well, if you did that, it would mean you’d have to leave again to take me home,” Bitty pointed out.

“Except you could stay,” Jack blurted, then bit the inside of his cheek to regroup. He didn’t want it to sound…like _that_. “I mean…I’ve a guest room, and you know my sofa’s comfortable. I didn’t mean, um…”

Bitty laughed again. “Come pick me up, you ridiculous man. Maybe I can help you get to those boxes I know you been neglectin’.”

Jack flushed, but nodded again. “Yeah, okay. Give me twenty minutes.”

He managed to arrive at Bitty’s in fifteen, thanks to the traffic being decent for the time of night. He sent a text instead of going up since his leg was starting to throb a little, and a few minutes later, Bitty appeared with a bag over his shoulder, and a pastry box in his hands.

“Stress baking?” Jack asked.

“You know it. Feel free to take that into your practise tomorrow and piss off your nutritionist. Though there’s real fruit in it so he can’t complain that much.”

Jack felt a sort of intense relief at the sight of Bitty’s smile. Knowing he was here, and he was safe, and there hadn’t been any real conflict that put Bitty in danger was enough. It was also something he wanted to examine later. Something Linda would probably draw a parallel to Liam with but…he could deal with it in session.

For now, he pulled away from the kerb and headed back home.

*** 

Jack had some decaff coffee in his freezer that his mother had left before they headed back to Montreal, and he put that on as Bitty reheated the pie. There was a little conversation here and there, but Jack knew Bitty would have to be goaded into talking about his feelings. Bitty, too often, was more willing to be there for other people than let himself vent.

Bitty started to head toward the boxes as Jack carried their coffees to the sofa, but Jack directed him away, forcing him to sit with a stern nod.

Rolling his eyes, Bitty flopped onto the cushions and nestled in. “Have I ever told you I love this sofa? Like…if I had a truck and stronger arms, I’d totally come steal it.”

“I knew you were only using me,” Jack said with a quirked smile.

Bitty started to grin back, but there was a shadow in his eye, and his smile quickly dropped. “You know I’m not here just because you’re Jack Zimmermann, right? You know I’m…”

“Bits,” Jack said softly, stopping the flow of words. “I’ve been able to read people who want something from me besides friendship for a long time. I was trained to do it pretty much from birth. You wouldn’t be here right now, if that was the case.”

Bitty’s shoulders fell away from his ears a little, and he reached for his coffee. After taking a drink, he sighed. “Okay. I just…I worry sometimes.”

“Is that what your fight with John was about?” Jack asked carefully. Like the other guys, Jack didn’t pry into Bitty’s relationship. He’d seen a few times Ransom or Holster make a comment, and Bitty’s immediate defence made Jack realise it was a topic that had to be navigated carefully. He didn’t understand, of course, why Bitty let someone treat him that way, but maybe it wasn’t his place to. Maybe his job was to just…be there, when Bitty needed him. To remind him that there were people who respected him, and loved him for exactly who he was.

Thumbing the rim of his mug, Bitty didn’t meet Jack’s eyes when he shrugged and said, “Sort of. I mean, things have been tense all week. He’s got some trips coming up, and he was kind of angry because the shop was busy and I didn’t get some time off he wanted me to.”

“He could have stayed with you and helped out,” Jack pointed out.

Bitty snorted. “He wouldn’t lower himself to retail.” In the tone, Jack could tell that was something John had told Bitty many times before. “And anyway, it’s not fair to ask him to work during the time we’d set aside for personal stuff.”

Jack bit his lip, then asked, “Hasn’t he had to cancel on you before? For his own work stuff.”

“Yes, but…”

“I understand it’s frustrating, but he should try and be a little more accommodating. This is your career.”

Bitty’s cheeks flushed, and he shrugged. “Not much of a career, is it? I mean, making coffee and selling books no one’s ever heard of?” He gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I mean, it’s not like…I’m making a difference in the world.”

“You don’t have to move mountains to make a difference, Bits,” Jack said softly. He ached to reach out and hug him, but he wasn’t sure it would be welcome. Instead he pushed both plates of pie onto the cushion separating them, and nudged Bitty’s leg with his foot until Bitty started laughing, and they both dug in.

It was an hour before Bitty suggested they get to work on the boxes, and Jack felt a wave of apprehension as he led Bitty back into his bedroom. It was largely unfurnished still, nothing on the walls, his bed a rumpled mess. The boxes were neatly stacked where a wardrobe was meant to go, and most of the stuff Jack knew would just end up in his big, walk-in closet.

Biting his lip, Jack then said, “I was thinking we can use a couple of the boxes we empty for his stuff. I erm…I don’t entirely know what I want to do, yet. His parents are in Boston so I could ah. I could drop them off, or…”

Bitty hesitated, looking uncertain as he eyed the labels on the cardboard reading, **Bedroom** in that same bold script. “I’ll go with you,” he said after a pause. “When you go. You shouldn’t have to go alone.”

Jack felt his face go a little warm. “You don’t have to.”

Rolling his eyes, Bitty walked over to the boxes with a huff and pulled the top one off the stack. “I’m well aware, thank you Mr Zimmermann. But I think if the situation were reversed you’d be offering the same thing.”

Jack couldn’t really put himself in a reverse position, it was too difficult to imagine still being with Liam, still struggling in a relationship that was doomed, and trying to comfort a friend who’d just lost someone. But Bitty wasn’t wrong. Whatever else might happen, Jack knew he’d do his best to make sure Bitty wasn’t alone.

“Alright,” he said eventually. “The team’s going on a roadie next week—four games, and I’m not cleared to travel yet so if you can swing some time off…”

Bitty laughed. “Perks of it being my shop.” He winked, then tore the tape off the first box and began to unload what Jack soon discovered was all of his jerseys he’d collected over the years. Most of them were from Juniors, and gifts from other players, and a few were from his stints with other teams.

“Those get hung up,” Jack said. He swept them onto the end of the bed to deal with later, and dragged another box down. Paperwork, mostly. Stuff that hadn’t been put back into Jack’s file cabinet.

The next two were hockey memorabilia which had come from Jack’s office in his old place, and he hadn’t entirely decided what to do with it, so he shoved it to the side, even as Bitty was rifling through it. A second later, he came out with a puck, a scribbled autograph on the side in silver marker.

“Who’s this?”

Jack glanced over, then laughed. “My dad.”

Bitty’s brows shot up to his hairline. “Your dad gave you a signed puck?”

“Ah,” Jack said, rubbing the back of his neck. “Not exactly? It was the game-winning puck from the night I was born. He was with the Pens then, and he was playing the Habs—it was right after he was traded. My mom went into early labour and as he likes to tell it, I was born at the exact same time as he made the shot—which is bullshit, but you’ll never get him to admit it.”

Bitty laughed. “I see.”

Jack shrugged, feeling a little ridiculous. “Anyway, he kept the puck, of course, and for my bar mitzvah, my uncle Mario suggested he sign it and give it to me as a good luck charm. And my dad being the smartass that he is…did.”

“Oh my god,” Bitty said with a snort.

Jack shrugged, taking the puck from Bitty and turning it over in his hands. He could see the look on Bob’s face like it was yesterday. The smirk on his lips, the excitement in his eyes, bouncing on his feet as Jack tore away the wrapping. Jack remembered staring at it, confused, knowing everyone was watching him. He could still hear Mario crowing with laughter in the background, and Jack blushing red-hot and humiliated until Bob dragged him into a hug and presented him with his real gift. The funny part was, Jack didn’t even remember what the real gift was. His dad took the puck back, but Jack stole it out of his office and kept it. Bob saw it, years later, and though they never mentioned it, Jack knew it meant a lot to his father.

“Anyway,” Jack said, putting it back into the box, “I have a lot of stupid shit like that.”

“You mean like this?” Bitty pulled out a framed photo of both Bob and Wayne Gretzky sporting horrific 80s mullets, both in their jerseys, both holding pints and grinning with a missing front tooth.

Jack rolled his eyes. “I only keep that to remind him he’s not as cool as he pretends to be.”

“So this one goes above the fireplace then,” Bitty said, and set it down on the jerseys.

Jack chuckled. “I’m telling him it was your idea next time he’s here.” He reached for the next box, feeling light and happy until he tore the top open.

At first glance, the box was innocuous, only it wasn’t at all. Jack’s heart hammered against his chest, because he recognised every book, every photo album, and every little keepsake box inside. This was Liam’s stuff.

Bitty likely noticed the trembling in his hands, because he slid up to Jack’s side instantly, gripping his wrist. “Is it…”

“Yeah,” Jack said, his voice cracking a little at the end. He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “Yeah. Um.”

“Do you want to just set it aside?” Bitty offered, his tone open, like any answer Jack gave would be without judgment.

Jack reached out, tracing the edge of gold embossing the spine of one of the albums. Liam loved photographs. Even as digital became more prevalent and his job revolved round it, he never gave up his film. It was the one thing he and Liam had together. They’d built the darkroom in their flat, and it was the one place that, even if they were furious at each other, they could go and just…connect.

“Do you want to look at them?” Bitty asked.

Jack shrugged, but he didn’t stop Bitty when he reached over and pulled the first album out. He sank to the floor with his knees up, back to the box, and Jack eventually joined him. Bitty opened up to a middle page, and Jack saw it was a trip to Niece they’d taken when Liam had gone to write a piece on a group of swimmers who lived in the area.

“Was that him?” Bitty asked, tracing the edge of a photo. It was. It was Liam and Jack, posing a little ridiculously in front of a cabana holding drinks with frilly umbrellas. They were tanned and relaxed and happy, Liam leaning into Jack with a smile so absent of tension, Jack was almost startled. His own face mirrored Liam’s, and it hurt because he couldn’t recall ever feeling that calm with Liam. Not even in the beginning.

“It was for work. For his work,” Jack said, his voice a little rough. “We ah…it was during the off season, and it was only a couple days, but we took two weeks there. His French was terrible, and I was self-conscious about my accent, but we had a good time. I guess it wasn’t always…” He swallowed thickly.

Bitty reached out, squeezing his fingers briefly. Turning another group of pages, he landed on a few photos of Chanukah they’d spent in Montreal. Jack had three days winter break, so they’d flown up to spend it with his parents. There were a few with Liam at the table with Jack’s cousins hoarding a giant pile of gelt like a dragon, making a huge grimace. Jack remembered taking that photo.

There was another one, dark save for the menorah lighting up the silhouette of Liam’s face.

And another of Jack and Liam watching the snow fall out of the living room window, leant back, the only thing touching was their linked fingers.

Jack remembered it. It had been nice, but they were fighting that trip. They had a huge blow-out just before their flight out and Liam changed seats halfway through the trip. Jack had sat on the plane alone, aching inside, wondering if it was going to be like that forever.

He swallowed thickly and chanced a look over at Bitty. Did he feel like that? Jack couldn’t believe that John made Bitty truly happy. No one deserved to be treated like that—especially not Bitty.

Closing his eyes, he took another, long breath. “In the end, I was so consumed with how miserable I was, I forgot to remember it wasn’t all bad.” Jack touched another photograph of Liam curled up on the sofa with a cat. It was a neighbourhood stray, and they didn’t keep her, but they’d flirted with the idea for a few weeks before giving her to one of their neighbours. “He was a good person sometimes.”

Bitty hummed quietly, flipping through more photos. “I imagine he’d have to have some redeeming qualities, if you thought he was good enough to spend so many years with.”

Jack let out a small, somewhat bitter laugh. “Sometimes I wonder if it was just my fear of being alone that kept me going for so long. I realised in the end I’d be happier being alone forever, than constantly dangling at the end of a string, him never sure if he was going to cut it or not. I couldn’t…I couldn’t live like that.” Jack shrugged. “He deserved better than death, though.”

“Everyone does, I think,” Bitty said softly. He shifted over, laying his head on Jack’s shoulder, and it was warm and soft and so, so good. “I’m glad you figured out you deserve more than that, Jack. You’re…you’re one of the best people I’ve ever known. You deserve to be loved by someone who’s consumed with it.”

Jack bit the inside of his cheek, everything in his body telling him not to go there, to keep his mouth shut. But he was a bit of a dipshit sometimes, and well…

“So do you, you know.”

Bitty pulled back, blinking at him. “Jack…”

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Bits. And I’m not going to insult you by saying you don’t know what you’re doing. But you have to know that the things John says to you isn’t right.”

Bitty winced. “He’s just…”

“I know what he’s just,” Jack said, and breathed through a sudden spike of anger. “And I know you know that everyone can’t stand the way he treats you. If he makes you happy, I’ll shut up about it forever. But if he doesn’t…”

“It’s more complicated than that,” Bitty said, his voice strained, his eyes a little wet. “I know he’s…I know what it looks like. But he’s so sweet sometimes. I mean I—I do get tired and…” Bitty swallowed thickly and shrugged, the movement jostling Jack’s shoulder a little. “Sometimes I just want out, and then he goes and does something so sweet.”

Jack hesitated, not sure he should push it further, but he recognised the struggle in Bitty’s eyes. And though he understood Bitty would have to get there in his own time, he wasn’t doing him any favours by staying completely silent. “I just think,” he said, very slowly, “that you deserve better than hanging on and being miserable for the few good moments he gives you. Relationships don’t have to be over-the-top happiness all the time. I mean, I’m obviously not the best judge. But I’m pretty sure the idea that hard work means being miserable for nothing more than a handful of happy moments as pay-off is just a way for people to excuse why they’ve let themselves be so unhappy for so long.” He stopped, breathing in and out for a moment, then said, “At least, that’s what it meant to me. Your situation isn’t mine, Bits. But I just want you to know that I care and I want more for you than…well.” He shrugged. “That.”

Bitty bowed his head toward his knees. “It’s complicated,” was all he said, once more, without much conviction.

Jack nodded. “It’s always complicated. Whatever the hell happens, we’re friends, right?”

At that, Bitty chanced a look up, and the smile this time reached his eyes. Mostly. “Of course we are.”

“So that matters. And it means I’ll be here for…whatever it is you want.”

Bitty laid his head down on Jack’s shoulder and sighed. “Thanks.”

Jack laughed, pushing his nose into Bitty’s hair briefly, and feeling the familiar scent of him like a comforting hug. “Any time, Bits.”

*** 

Jack’s legs were trembling, and he was on his crutches as he headed out of PT and to his car. He was frustrated, most of his ice time taken away because he’d been careless. Nothing was broken, the x-ray showed everything was still healing and in place, but there was a hairline fracture and he was back in his immobiliser, and only light weight-bearing for the next three weeks.

It was just as well. He knew there were risks, he knew there would be setbacks, and there was still months and months before the next season started. He had plenty of time to be ready.

But it didn’t change his frustration, which was leading into an anxiety spiral which had his hands now shaking has hard as his legs were. He managed to get his phone out of his pocket though, and clutched the steering wheel with one hand as he dialled up Linda.

She only took a moment before answering. “Jack. How did it go?”

“Hairline fracture. No ice time for six weeks, light weight-bearing and crutches for three, maybe four.” He swallowed and took a slow breath to calm his nerves.

“Do you need me to call in some Xanax?”

He appreciated the way she said it without judgment, as a simple fact that didn’t make him feel like he was backsliding. It was too easy to think of his anxiety as being cured when he was able to stay off meds, and he knew how damaging that mindset could be whenever things got tough.

But for now, he knew he was okay. “I’ll let you know, but I’m good for now. Just…frustrated.”

“I understand.” She paused, then said, “Are you still heading to Boston with Eric?”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut. He was supposed to pick Eric up in an hour. Jack had briefly considered buying them a pair of tickets, but Eric seemed excited about the road-trip prospect, so instead Jack had booked them a hotel in Scranton, and they’d make half the drive today, the rest the next day, and do the same on the way back.

His leg would be a painful, pain in the ass, but he didn’t want to lose this. He hadn’t done anything like this in so long, and the idea that going too hard on the ice too early had not only fucked up hockey, but also his trip with Bittle…

“I think so,” Jack said. It would happen. If Bitty could drive most of it.

“Well keep me posted, and call if you need anything, okay? I’ll be here when you get back.”

Jack was also missing two therapy appointments. They’d be staying the night in Boston, seeing a few of Jack’s old teammates, and Kate had mentioned she was there and wanted to grab drinks. But skype existed for a reason.

“I will. Thanks, Linda.”

“Have a good trip, Jack. Don’t forget to have fun. You’ve earnt a little bit of fun.”

Jack wasn’t so sure he believed her, but he’d largely moved past trying to punish himself for small mistakes—and this was a small mistake. He’d overestimated himself, and he was paying the price. But there was no need to deny himself a chance to be happy on top of the pain.

He sent Bitty a text, then drove to his apartment to grab his things. It was a little more difficult, trying to manoeuvre his case with the crutches, but he had meds for pain and managed to make it over to Bitty’s without feeling too bad. Bitty told him to come on up, and Jack realised it was the first time he was being let inside. If they weren’t at the café, they were usually at Jack’s, and it felt strangely intimate, being let into that space.

Fortunately for Jack, Bitty lived on the first floor, and the lift was in working order for the short ride up. He made it to Bitty’s door, which was cracked open, and Jack could hear the sounds of Bitty singing along to whatever was playing on his speakers.

Pushing the door open with his crutch, he eased inside, and stopped. The place was very him. Scattered a little, with various artwork of various sizes hanging round that had the mark of Lardo all over it. There were photo collages as well, some in frames, some just stuck to the wall of the café, of his friends, of his old school campus.

Jack noticed immediately that there was a distinct lack of John in all of this—not just the flat, though Jack couldn’t really see signs of him, but also in the display of people close to Bitty. He knew he had no intention of bringing it up, but it was a bit of information he tucked away to process later.

“Bits?” he called out after a moment.

Bitty’s head poked from round a door, his hair stuck up all over with some product, and he was going at it furiously with a comb. “Hey, hun. Just make yourself at home. I…” He stopped and frowned. “Oh no. Crutches?”

Jack sighed, releasing one to drag a hand down his face. “Hairline fracture, light weight bearing for a few weeks. I’m uh…I can’t really drive so…”

“I got it. I’m great behind the wheel, okay?” Bitty grinned at him, then popped back into the bathroom to finish up, and Jack let himself into the kitchen to grab water from the tap so he could take something for the pain.

By the time Bitty was done, the throbbing in Jack’s leg had settled into a dull roar, and he was feeling better about the trip. Bitty came out with a case dragging behind him, and a stack of pillows which he hit Jack in the face with, then giggled.

“For your leg,” he explained. “You’ll want to keep it comfy if we’re sitting for that long.”

Jack thought about protesting, but he knew Bitty’s caregiver nature wouldn’t be swayed, so he just held the door and locked up with Bitty’s keys.

It was strange being in the passenger seat of his own car, but Bitty got him comfortable with a pillow under his thigh, and one behind his back, and wasted no time making all the adjustments he needed to drive. Jack knew his car was nicer than most—it was one of the few things he truly splurged on, and Bitty grinned as they pulled from the kerb.

“This is so nice. Worth becoming someone famous just for the squashy seats.” He bounced a little, and Jack snorted a laugh.

“Maybe you just need to charm a few more NHL players. I have a feeling most of them would be willing to trade their nice cars for a constant stream of baked goods.”

“NHL players,” Bitty asked, waggling his brows, “or one specific NHL player who has a thing for maple cookies and sugar pies?”

Jack pulled a face, and Bitty laughed again. Contentment at the sight of Bitty’s smile—a real thing, soft and easy—settled in Jack’s bones. He didn’t think this trip was going to be easy. He had been too injured to attend the funeral, and none of Liam’s family had been to see him, in the end. He suspected they must have known, somehow, at least about the baby—and maybe more. Maybe all of it. But this was the least Jack could do, and it was an important step of moving on.

Jack would always have the memories, the evidence of them tucked inside those boxes, but he didn’t want to wallow, he didn’t want to relive moments where he was that unhappy. It was time to carve out something new for himself, in the disaster that his life had become since the crash. It was time to let himself look ahead to a future he had never bothered to envision, but now was becoming startlingly clear.

He looked over at Bitty, felt himself sigh, and realised there were feelings settled in his gut that he would have to examine soon. 

But not until after this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A lot of people are angry with the John character--I don't blame you. He's not a good guy. The relationship is low-key emotional abuse, and I know some readers are frustrated with Bitty for not getting out or seeing things as how they are, and some frustrated with Bitty's friends for not saying anything.
> 
> The problem is, in Bitty's case, when you're in a relationship like that, sometimes it can be very difficult to realise you're being emotionally manipulated. You can see it in other people, but you always have excuses for why in your relationship it's different, or it's okay. Sometimes you've been convinced that you can't do better, sometimes you believe the person can change. And it takes A LOT to break that cycle.
> 
> As for Bitty's friends--they know Bitty won't listen to them, and if they keep pushing, Bitty will cut them off and they don't want Bitty to lose them as a support system. So they try to be there for him in small, subtle ways until Bitty's ready to leave. They're not condoning or enabling the abuse, they're providing a safe space for Bitty when things eventually fall apart.
> 
> And they will.
> 
> This is a happy ending fic. I just want to be clear that sometimes relationships are complicated, and the reasons people stay in toxic places aren't always easy to explain or define. I've been through my share and at thirty-six years old, I feel like I can navigate them better, but I couldn't say that about my twenty-one year old self. I promise, there will be resolution and hopefully keeping it as realistic as I can.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a brief interlude chapter before we get on with the plot. It took me a while to work through this, because it was basically me working through some grief feelings, taking it out on poor Jack. I owe that man some serious fluff (which is coming soon.)
> 
> Next update we'll be back on track, and it should be sooner than this chapter took me, but no promises.
> 
> Please be warned for intense descriptions of grieving in this chapter. Feel free to skip it if that sort of thing is triggering for you.

Jack hadn’t really considered the mechanics of the trip—apart from getting to Boston, dropping off the boxes, then going home. Which only proved to be an issue when they were checking in and stepped into the room to find a single, king-sized bed.

Jack looked over at Bitty, vaguely horrified as Bitty covered a small giggle with the tips of his fingers. “Lord, if we were in some rom-com right now…”

Jack felt himself flushing, shaking his head. “I’ll go back down and see if they can fix it.”

And he did.

And they couldn’t.

He received a tired, standard answer, “Sir, we don’t have any doubles available at the present time. We can upgrade you to a suite with a separate room and a sofa bed if you like.”

Jack didn’t think banishing himself or Bitty to the sofa bed was fair, not to mention they already had one in their room. So what was the point. With a resigned sigh, he asked the front desk if they could send up a spare bedding, then headed back to find Bitty was already in the shower.

Sitting down at the edge of the bed, Jack pulled out his phone and absently swiped at the screen. The background was whatever default, swirls of colour which had come with it when he’d picked up his new one. His old one had been crushed in the car crash, and with it so many of his memories. Some of it remained in a fog, others transferred over through saved messages, photos, and calendar dates.

But the little bits that reflected his day to day life with Liam—the casual, ‘I’ll be home in ten minutes,’ or, ‘do you want me to pick you up pho from that place you like,’ texts, were lost.

He supposed others had gone too. The uglier ones. The ones asking where Liam was, the lies in response, the confrontations, and Liam’s reluctant admission that he didn’t know what he wanted. That he wasn’t sure he wanted to keep loving Jack anymore.

Jack could hear the faint sounds of Bitty singing in the shower, and even as he swiped to his gallery and loaded up photos from months and months before, he smiled. The sound of Bitty’s voice was grounding in the present, as the past threatened to drag him under. His breathing came out shaking, a little scared, but he was _here_.

His thumb hovered over the last selfie he’d taken with Liam. Months before the accident, in a moment of rare contentment. Nothing special had happened that night. They’d both been tired, neither of them wanted to cook, so Liam suggested the place down the street with the build-your-own pizza. They got Liam’s favourite s’mores pie which came in single-servings, and what Liam called the, “All-natural, hippy-dippy fizzy drink,” from the fountain.

They ate at a bench outside, and on the walk home, Liam had taken his hand. It wasn’t anything profound, he just hadn’t done it in a while. So at the front of their building Jack had chuckled, and put his arm round Liam’s waist, and tucked his chin over his shoulder. “Good lighting for a selfie, eh?”

“Well, you do have an eye, Zimms.” And Liam had pulled a little bit of a face, but their smiles reached their eyes, and Jack could remember being happy in that second.

It hit him like a punch to the gut, and his eyes welled with tears. Because so much of it hadn’t been happy, he’d forgotten what that felt like. After the accident, after getting as much memory as he was going to get back, so much of what he recovered had been dark, and angry. And he’d been so eclipsed by the feeling of it all ending, he’d forgotten it had been good too. So much had been good.

And Liam’s memory deserved better than a box unceremoniously dumped on his parents’ porch.

He deserved a better goodbye than that.

“Lordy, that shower has amazing water pressure. Jack, trust me when…” Bitty’s voice trailed off, and he froze in the middle of the room.

Jack’s sight was foggy with unshed tears, but it must have been obvious on his face he was close to collapse, because Bitty immediately dropped the towel he was using to dry his hair, and rushed to the bed. His arms, though so much smaller than Jack, managed to wrap him up somehow in a tight hug, with a comfort Jack hadn’t felt in a long time.

He tried to stop it, to contain it, but a raw sob ripped from his mouth as he buried his face in the side of Bitty’s neck. His fingers curled in the threadbare sleep shirt Bitty had thrown on over a still-damp chest, and he shook with the grief now consuming him.

“Sweetheart, I’ve got you. Okay? I’ve got you and I’m right here, and it’s okay.” Bitty repeated the words over and over, like a mantra, slow and under his breath, and the words drawing together so it was nothing more than a distant hum just under the sound of Jack finally, _finally_ letting himself cry.

“He shouldn’t have gone like this,” Jack said when he was calm enough to form words. “It shouldn’t have been like this.”

“I know,” Bitty murmured. He pushed his fingers in and out of Jack’s hair, letting his blunt nails scrape gently across his scalp.

“He deserves better than…this.”

There was a pause, then Bitty said, “So let’s give him better.”

Jack pulled away slightly, not really willing to move completely from the warmth and comfort of Bitty’s arms, but enough so he could swipe at his eyes and ask, “How do you mean?” He felt small then, vulnerable, but he wasn’t afraid to be that in front of Eric Bittle.

“Look, we’re going to be in Boston tomorrow, right? You still wanna leave that box with his momma and daddy?”

Jack swiped at his eyes again, took in a shaking breath, then nodded. “I…yes. That’s not stuff I ever meant to keep.”

“So we do that. Then…we can do something else. If you want to visit him, he’s buried here, right?”

“He was cremated, but he’s got a plaque.”

“So we can do that,” Bitty said. “Then we can have a toast in his honour. Maybe we can go to all his favourite places. You can tell me all the good things you remember when you were livin’ there.”

Somehow, it was the best idea Jack had ever heard. And maybe come morning, Jack wouldn’t feel that way at all, maybe he’d just want to pretend like it was all okay, and work it out in Linda’s office. But for now, he could nod, and smile a little, and say, “Thanks, Bits.”

Bitty laughed. “Of course, sweetheart. Now, are we packing up or…”

Jack pulled back all the way, his shoulders sagging. “Ah. No, shit. I’m sorry. I’m having someone bring up extra bedding and I can take the sofa tonight—”

“Jack Zimmermann you will do exactly no such thing. This bed is plenty big and I’ll have you know after a good cry, you need some good cuddles and if I’m good at anything besides bakin’ pies, it’s that.”

“You’re good at a lot of things, Bits,” Jack murmured, then flushed and shook his head. “But I…thank you.”

“Go on and get yourself cleaned up. I’ll order us in something to eat, and we’ll binge some terrible Food Network reality TV until we fall asleep. Deal?”

Jack’s smile was soft, genuine, and more than grateful as he let Bitty boss him into the bathroom, and under the hot spray of water. He didn’t feel all the way better. There was a heavy grief settled in his bones he’d been neglecting for a long time, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to unpack it all. But he had Linda, and he had his friends, and he wasn’t _afraid_ to feel things, which was a good sign.

Scrubbing up and rinsing off, Jack slipped into his sleep bottoms and an old Bruins t-shirt. He dragged his fingers through his hair, then picked up his phone and texted Linda. **You don’t need to answer tonight. But I had a small breakdown. I’m with Eric, so I’m okay, safe, but I think I’ll need to see you as soon as I get home.**

He walked back into the main room just as Bitty was accepting the room service from the person at the door. It was a large tray, two covered plates, and Jack put his phone down, then sat on the bed as Bitty slid it between them.

Sandwiches and fries, and it smelt greasy and terrible for him, and perfect.

“Thank you,” he murmured.

Bitty just gave him a big, shining grin as he picked up the edge of a sandwich and took a bite. “Trust me, Jack. When it comes to comfort, I’m an expert.”

*** 

It was late by the time Jack felt settled enough to crawl into bed. Bitty was rummaging through his pack, then crawled under the covers with something clutched between his hands. It was a ratty, stuffed rabbit with one eye missing, and a tattered blue t-shirt. Jack raised a brow, and Bitty flushed in the dim light of the hotel lamp.

“Señor Bun,” he said with a shrug, rubbing one of the ears between this thumb and forefinger. “I’ve had him since forever. Chirp away, I know I deserve it.”

Jack shook his head, then reached out a slow, tentative hand. When Bitty didn’t pull back, Jack stroked the top of Bun’s head. “I would never chirp you for this. It’s sweet.”

Bitty rolled his eyes. “I don’t…John thinks he’s ridiculous, thinks it’s infantile which—I mean I guess I see his point but…”

“Everyone has their thing, Bits,” Jack said, the words, ‘he doesn’t deserve you’ bubbling hot in his chest, but he pushed them down. “Even John. Just because it’s not a stuffed rabbit doesn’t mean it isn’t the same thing.” Jack pet the Bun one more time, then rolled a little onto his back and sighed up at the ceiling. “I had a stuffed goat when I was little. Fromage.”

Bitty blinked. “You…had a stuffed goat called Cheese?”

Bitty’s deadpan tone startled a laugh out of him, and turned fully onto his side, grinning. “Yeah. I forget Mr Foodie would know the name for cheese in French.”

“What do you take me for, Monsieur Zimmermann.”

Jack bit his lip, then sighed. “I lost him off the side of a boat. My uncle’s speedboat. He was strapped down with a few other things—a pair of my shoes, one of my dad’s cameras. The strap came loose and it all went flying. I saw it happen, and I was screaming for him, but no one could hear me over the sound of the motor. By the time we slowed down I was just…sobbing, those ugly sobs with hiccups and snot.”

Bitty wrinkled his nose. “Yeah, I’m familiar with them.”

Jack shook his head. “We drove back, but I couldn’t remember exactly where it had been lost, and we never found him. My maman gave me another animal after that—she couldn’t find a goat, so I got a stuffed cow. It wasn’t the same. I gave him to my cousin Sorel at his bris.”

Bitty giggled a little, and reached out, pushing some of the fringe off Jack’s forehead. “I’m sorry, honey. I don’t mean to laugh. I don’t know what I’d do if anything ever happened to Señor Bun.”

“Just take care of him, eh? I mean, you’re doing a pretty good job it seems like.”

Bitty sighed, tucking the bun close to his chest, but he shuffled closer so his knees were knocking against Jack’s, and Jack could feel a faint puff of breath across his cheeks. “I know you got a lot to sort through, and I know I can be…flighty at times, but I’m here for you, okay? I’m tryin’ my best to be a good friend.”

“Bits,” Jack said, his voice breathy with a little exasperation. “Bits, you’re…one of the most selfless, kind people I have ever met. If I’ve ever made you feel like…”

“No. No, Jack, it’s not you. It’s just…”

“John,” he replied, his tone going dark.

Bitty closed his eyes for a minute, breathing. “I know I deserve better. That’s the stupid part. I know it. Everyone’s been tellin’ me for years now and I’m no fool, Jack. I know I could do better but…” He scrubbed a hand down his face. “Do you know what it’s like livin’ in a place like Madison? Bein’ the only gay boy—the son of the football coach, and loving to bake, and Beyonce, and figure skating? And everyone always said, ‘Don’t worry, it doesn’t mean you’ll turn out queer,’ like that was some kinda comfort, and hell, so many nights I’d get on my knees and pray the lord would just make me feel normal for once. But he never did.”

“Because you are normal,” Jack said, quiet but fierce.

“Maybe,” Bitty conceded, and Jack wanted to personally turn back time and beat up every person who ever made Bitty feel unworthy or different. “But when you spend that many years bein’ told you’re the odd one out, bein’ told that what you want ain’t gonna bring you happiness…even when you start to unlearn all that nonsense, it never fully goes away. And I’m just afraid if I don’t settle now, I’ll…”

“Be alone,” Jack finished for him. He breathed out. “You wouldn’t last ten minutes on the single market, Bits. Trust me. You’re gorgeous, and smart, and funny, and sweet. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to make it work with John. I’m just saying that there’s enough people in this world who love you enough that you’d never be lonely.”

Bitty blinked at him, then covered his face. “Lord have mercy, Jack Zimmermann!” He smacked Jack on the arm. “I’m supposed to be comforting you, here!”

“You are. You did,” Jack insisted, and grabbed Bitty’s wrist tight, easing his hand down between them. “I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“I didn’t want you to do this alone,” Bitty said.

Jack shook his head. “No. I mean, I didn’t want to do it alone, but I’m saying I couldn’t have done this without _you_. That’s how much you mean to me. So just…any time he makes you feel small, or unworthy, just remember there are people out there who very much don’t agree.”

He watched the line of Bitty’s throat move as he swallowed thickly, then nodded. “Thank you, Jack.”

“You’re welcome, Bits.”

The silence between them was soft, easy, and when Bitty reached over to turn out the light, he came back a little closer. Jack could feel the press of the stuffed bun against his arm. And it wasn’t going to heal him, but it certainly made him feel better.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: grief, frank discussions of adoption, and infidelity (in the case of the OC)

Jack didn’t realise how tightly he was gripping the wheel until his knuckles ached, and he felt a pain riding up into his wrist. He let out a breath, shaking his fingers out, and glanced over at Bitty who was watching out the window, his elbow propped against the car door, his chin resting on curled knuckles.

The trip had been a lot. Jack had woken that morning with a strange warmth in his gut as Bitty slept beside him, almost no space between their bodies. Jack had come to with an ankle pressed against his calf, and the quiet, shuffling in and out of Bitty’s breath. It was a lot, and the feeling hit him harder than he expected, and surprising him in the way that he couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed before now.

He was falling in love.

It was simple once he opened himself up to it. The craving to be near Bitty, wanting to make him laugh, and smile, and take away every frown. It frightened him in a way, making him wonder if his immense dislike for John was rooted in his growing feelings, but it was something he’d have to examine later, because for now, he had no plans of telling Bitty. It wouldn’t be fair to do that to him, not when he was involved with someone else—not when he was trying to figure things out, what he wanted. Bitty needed to decide for himself how things would end up with John, and it wouldn’t be fair to throw that at him now.

And frankly, Jack was in no place to start up something new. Not yet.

So he swallowed against the lump in his throat, and put his mind on their task at hand which happened to be seeing his dead boyfriend’s parents for the first time in a long, long time.

Jack had called them earlier, and Liam’s mother, Sam, had sighed with some relief, telling him, “Of course you’re welcome here, Jack. We weren’t sure we’d ever get to see you again.”

It was Bitty who later suggested he not tag along. “I know you don’t want to be alone, but it doesn’t seem fair for me to…encroach on that. Kate can pick me up, and we can meet up after, okay?”

Jack wanted to grab Bitty, beg him to stay, but he had to admit Bitty was right. Jack didn’t know what Liam’s parents wanted to say to him, what might come out, and it wasn’t fair to subject Bitty to that. And it wasn’t fair to put Liam’s parents in a position where they might need to hold back in front of a total stranger.

There was a Starbucks close to the house, and Jack pulled up to the kerb as soon as he saw Kate’s smiling face in the window. He pushed the car into park, then glanced over at Bitty who was biting his lip, the way he did whenever he was unbearably nervous.

“Promise you’ll be okay,” he finally blurted.

Jack couldn’t help a small laugh, reaching over and tugging his friend into a hug. “I’ll be okay. I’m…it’s going to be a lot, but I’m in a place now I can do this. I promise.”

“Just…keep in touch with me. Otherwise I’m gonna worry all afternoon and trust me, you wouldn’t like me when I get all needy and neurotic.”

Jack begged to differ, because he couldn’t imagine a time ever not liking Bitty. Even when he was a little overwhelming, and a touch annoying, Jack still wanted to be around him all the time. And maybe he was growing more biased each day, but it didn’t change facts. But he couldn’t say any of that. “I’ll text you every half hour, okay?”

Bitty let out a tiny breath of relief, then surged up to kiss Jack on the cheek. “I’m proud of you for doing this, Jack. I am.”

Jack couldn’t say anything against the way his throat went tight and hot, so he just nodded, and watched as Bitty let himself out of the car, closing the door with a firm click. And then it was time. It was time to drive away from the kerb, and face down the last bit of his past which was holding him back.

*** 

Jack had been to Liam’s parents’ house many times over the course of their relationship. It was an old brownstone in Beacon Hill, almost tattered looking from the outside, with vestiges of old history on the inside. The first time he’d come, he’d been enthralled with it, captivated by the way his parents had attempted to preserve everything. Liam’s father was a historian and theologian, and taught at the Theological Institute as a retirement hobby. He and Jack talked for hours, and there was a part of Jack who wondered if he clung to Liam for so long because he loved this part of him—this intimate family he could connect to outside of hockey and outside of celebrity.

Walking up to the door, it felt strange now, like he was a stranger intruding on a life he was no longer part of. It stung to realise how true it was. He had no doubt Liam’s parents would assure him he’d always be family, always be welcome, but it was propriety, not honesty. Jack had moved on from that life before the accident took control of their future, and it wasn’t fair to pretend like he hadn’t made that choice.

The box in his arms weighed heavy, and his leg was aching, but he made it up the few steps to the door and rang the bell.

Sam answered first, looking sad but put together with her dark coiffed hair and light pink cardigan. She went on her toes to kiss him on the cheek, fussing over his leg, over how he was carrying such a heavy box, and hurried him into the parlour where he could set everything down.

“I ah…I took some time to make sure I got everything. I wasn’t sure what you’d want but…” He trailed off with a helpless shrug, and he tried to ignore the way her eyes went watery.

“I wish Steven was here,” she said, and pressed the tips of her fingers into the blooming pink on her cheeks. She breathed out. “His brother needed some help with a few things but…but he sends his love.”

Jack wasn’t sure how true that was. It had the sting of a lie, but it didn’t seem right to call her on it. “I understand,” was what he said instead, and sat as she hurried to bring them tea.

The house felt strangely empty, too quiet, devoid of their usual guests, devoid of the quiet music Sam had always had on in the background. The place felt in mourning, and Jack couldn’t imagine what it was like for them, to lose a child.

Sam returned with the tea, then sat down on the opposite end of the sofa, giving Jack a very careful look. “I…there’s somethings…” She swallowed. “I think there’s something you should know, Jack.”

Jack blinked at her, and maybe it was his lack of sleep, or his swirling thoughts that took so long, but it was a moment before he realised what she was trying to say. “I know about the baby.”

She looked startled, like she’d been slapped across the face. She pressed the flat of her palm to her chest. “I…did he tell you or…?”

“I found out. I knew about…about her,” Jack said, and cleared his throat. “It had been going on for a while.”

“Oh. Oh Jack,” she breathed.

Jack shook his head. “It was over. It was supposed to have been over. We were okay for a few months. Then I…then I saw them. She was pregnant and he wasn’t sure what he wanted.” This was the moment he’d dreaded because he hadn’t been sure up to this moment if he was going to say anything at all. But she looked so devastated for him, he couldn’t let her think that even in death, Liam had betrayed him. “I made the decision for him. He couldn’t let her go, so I let him go. In the car we were making final arrangements to end things. Before we…before the car um…”

Sam looked away, blinking hard and fast, her breathing a little tight. “Steven was afraid you’d…he wasn’t sure how you’d feel. Liam never said…oh lord.” She cleared her throat and pat her cheeks again before looking back over. “We only found out after the claim had been made on his life insurance. We thought it was fraud and went to fight her on it. She had a genetic test done.”

Jack pursed his lips, nodding. “I thought she might.”

“You know her,” Sam breathed.

Jack shook his head. “No. No I never…we never…” He shrugged, helpless against the ache in his chest, though it wasn’t as suffocating as it might have been if he’d still loved Liam. “It wasn’t a thing we agreed to, it was an affair, and I met her by accident.” Jack swallowed again, then let his hands fall into his lap. “I was angry, but I didn’t want this. I just wanted him to…to make the choice that made him happy. It shouldn’t have been like this.” His voice broke a little, and Sam sucked in her breath before she turned away to collect herself.

“She doesn’t want to keep the baby.”

That startled Jack, his eyes flying wide, a sort of panicked feeling in his chest as his heart began to thump. “I…I didn’t…what is she going to do.”

“Adoption, most likely. There’s still a few months left before she really has to decide. Steven and I are terrified because it’s the last link we have to our son. But she seems to have made up her mind, and we’re too old to take care of a baby, Jack. It wouldn’t be fair.”

It was too much, and Jack’s head was swimming with the knowledge because he had expected a lot of things, but not this.

“It feels like losing him all over again,” Sam confessed, her voice tight.

Jack stared at her, wanting to somehow fix it, wanting to make it better or make it all stop, but he didn’t know how. He felt a rush of anger—at her, at Liam, at himself for not knowing what Liam would have wanted. If he was still alive, would he have wanted to give the baby up for adoption? If he had chosen to stay with Jack, what would have happened then? If Jack had been less self-centred, he might have known, he might have…

“Jack,” Sam said, drawing his attention back. She put her hand on his knee, squeezing. “Please don’t blame yourself. I can see it on your face, and we know none of this was your fault. Liam…made his choices and I’m not going to…there’s just no sense in thinking about the what ifs. But you didn’t do this. Any of it.”

Jack wanted to explain that he knew that, that his guilt had come more from not trying a little harder, or not leaving sooner. But anything he said would hurt her more.

“We were so afraid to tell you,” Sam carried on. “I was so afraid to hurt you, after everything else.”

“I’m alright,” Jack confessed. “I’m happy. Pittsburgh has been good to me. I’ll be back on the ice soon, and I’m…doing okay.”

She breathed out a sigh of relief, then pulled him in for a hug. “Tell me all about it, then. And we can worry about the rest later.”

Jack felt a prickle of fear, that maybe his face would give too much away, but he felt like he owed her this, at least. So he took his tea, and let her in on his life. After all, it was likely the last time she was going to see him again.

*** 

He stayed three hours, texting Bitty twice, and then the emotional fatigue took over. Sam walked him to the door, and Jack turned hugging her again. “Can I…can I have her number?”

Sam blinked at him. “Rebecca?”

“I want to try, to see if there’s something I can do. A way so you don’t lose the baby. It’s probably a bad idea but…” He shrugged and watched as Sam’s resolve cracked, and she nodded.

She rushed back into the house, then returned with a slip of paper he tucked into his pocket. “Please take care of yourself. And don’t be a stranger,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

He squeezed her gently by the shoulders. “I won’t,” he said, and hated how it felt like such a lie. But he so desperately wanted to close this chapter of his life, and he wasn’t sure the rest of his future had room for the past which connected him to Liam.

The walk back to his car was long, his leg still aching fiercely, but Bitty was waiting just round the corner at a restaurant with Kate. Jack wasn’t entirely looking forward to her presence—he liked her well enough, but he wanted to be able to talk freely, and he didn’t know her well enough to do that. But she was a calming presence for Bitty, and he wasn’t going to take that away.

He could see them in the window of the restaurant, Bitty talking animatedly with his hands, Kate laughing behind her hand. The sight alone calmed him, in spite of still not knowing what to do with the information Liam’s mom had given him. But for now, he could enjoy this.

“Jack!” Bitty was on his feet, tugging him into a firm embrace. “How was it? Is everything okay?” Jack could hear the over-worry in his tone, and the way he tried to hide it behind his enthusiasm.

“It was fine,” Jack said, then took a breath and sat in the booth next to Bitty, smiling at Kate. “I hate to be the spoil-sport, and I know it’s a long drive, but I was kind of hoping we could…”

“Go back home?” Bitty offered, and nodded. “Of course, sweetheart. Kate was thinkin’ of tagging along though.”

“I don’t want to intrude,” she said, but Jack shook his head. It was disappointing, yes, but in a way it was also a relief. He wasn’t really up for thinking much just yet, and this gave him more of an excuse to push it toward the back of his mind. “I just need to pack up a few things.”

“I still wanted to…to see him,” Jack said, glancing at Bitty. “Before we go. So we can swing by and pick you up after?”

“Oh. Honey, I can go with her if…” Bitty began, but Jack was quick to interrupt.

“I wouldn’t mind the company.”

Bitty flushed, lowering his eyes, then looked back up at Kate who was wearing a curious expression. “Hour enough for you, hon?”

She nodded. “Sounds perfect. Let’s order so we can get a wriggle on. Last thing we want is to deal with the bullshit, rush hour gridlock.”

Lunch was quick, and Kate decided to get an uber so Jack and Bitty were left to grab the car and head to the cemetery where Liam’s memorial plot was. Jack was quiet on the drive over, and he could see Bitty stealing glances at him, jaw tense like he wanted to say something, but was afraid to interrupt the silence.

For a little while, Jack let himself take comfort in Bitty’s quiet presence. When they got to the cemetery parking, he switched off the car, but made no move to open the doors. He took a few deep breaths, then said, “His mom thought I didn’t know about the baby.”

“Oh,” Bitty said softly.

“She thought…she thought she was telling me. She was so upset.” Jack let out a trembling breath, dragging his hand down his face. “Rebecca, the woman—she doesn’t want to keep the baby. She wants to give it up for adoption, and his parents are devastated.”

“Oh my god,” Bitty breathed.

Jack shrugged, feeling that ache in the centre of his chest again. “They can’t do much. They’re too old to take a newborn in, and he hasn’t really got any siblings, you know? It’s…kind of a fucking mess. I told her I’d try and help, but I have no idea what the fuck to do.”

Bitty’s eyes were wide, his expression a little devastated, and his hands were clenched like he wanted to reach over, though he didn’t. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“Yes, please,” Jack said, and was surprised at how much he meant it. He got out of the car, and Bitty followed, making their quick way through the winding path until they came across the short row of family plots for Liam’s relatives. 

Sam had given him the directions when Jack was still in hospital, and he’d never forgotten. It was strange to see it all laid out—most of the people buried or memorialised there were older. Liam’s dates were far too close together, and it made Jack’s throat go a little tight when he thought about how many years the accident had taken from Liam. He might not have been the best for Jack, but he still had so much future to offer.

Letting out a breath, Jack knelt down, keenly aware of Bitty’s presence behind him. It was easy to feel comforted by it. There was no judgment for his grief, just a calming energy which kept him grounded. It was one of the reasons he was falling so hard. And maybe it was wrong to bring Bitty here like this, but part of him wanted to believe Liam wouldn’t have minded.

His finger reached out and traced the embossed name across the plaque. “I wish you’d told me what you wanted,” Jack murmured. “You were never really the type who seemed to want kids. Did you and Rebecca talk about it? I’m not sure she’d tell the truth if I asked her now. I feel like you’d be pretty pissed off with me for getting involved, but I like your mom and I want to help. I just…I wish I knew what the fuck to do. You should be here right now, you know? Making the decisions. This shouldn’t be up to me.”

_I might have wanted a child with you, some day,_ was what he didn’t say aloud. _If you hadn’t fallen in love with someone else, if you and I had loved each other the way we were supposed to, maybe none of this would have happened._

He swallowed the words down and sat back in the soft grass. Bitty was behind him, close enough Jack could feel his body heat. “I’m sorry, Bits. I know this is a lot.”

There was a hesitation, then a warm hand on Jack’s shoulder, squeezing. “It is, but I’m glad I’m here with you. I didn’t want you to do this alone.”

Jack squeezed his eyes shut, and let out a shaking breath. “I wish I knew what the fuck to do.”

“I wish I knew what the fuck to tell you,” Bitty echoed, and it made Jack smile a little. “Whatever help you need though. You know you can count on me, right?”

Jack breathed out, nodded. “Yeah. I know.”

They didn’t stay long, and Bitty texted Kate on their way back to the car. Jack let Bitty take over the driving for a while, and Kate promised to do the last leg so Jack could rest up and take a pain pill. It wasn’t an easy drive. Halfway through Jack was regretting wanting to make it all the way home, but he’d done longer on roadies, and had put himself through worse for fun on road trips.

It was half nine when they finally got back into Pittsburgh, and exhausted, Bitty leant between the two seats and directed Kate to John’s. “I was supposed to head over to his when we got back tomorrow, but since I’m early, I’ll just drop by now.”

Jack frowned, but nodded. “Do you want us to wait?”

“I have a key if he’s not here,” Bitty said.

Jack felt a funny twist in his gut. Jealousy, he realised. Jealousy because however much John wasn’t kind, he and Bitty had a history—a long one. They were in a place in their relationship where a future was something to be considered, where they shared keys, where they could drop in unannounced.

All the same, he smiled. “Text me later, eh?”

Bitty nodded, reaching over the seat to hug Jack tightly. “You’ll come by, right? When you’re feeling up for it? If not, I can come over and bake a pie.”

Jack smiled softly, feeling it warm throughout his limbs. “Yeah, Bits. Either one of those would be great.”

He watched Bitty get out of the car, and head in the building’s front doors. When Kate pulled away from the kerb, she glanced over at Jack and let out a slow breath. “Shit, that has to hurt.”

Jack blinked at her. “Sorry?”

She laughed. “You’re in love with him.”

That hit Jack, like a punch to the gut, and he swallowed thickly. “Am…I obvious?”

“Ch’yeah, a little,” she said with a shrug, taking the turn when Jack directed her to, “but if you’re worried about Bits knowing, don’t. He’s…let’s just say growing up the way he did, being unobservant is kind of a self-preservation thing. He doesn’t like to get his hopes up about anyone.”

That twisted in Jack’s stomach, painful. “I…well.” He cleared his throat. “He’s dating someone.”

Kate let out a sigh, but didn’t say anything as Jack directed her to his apartment. She pulled into his parking space, then switched the car off. “Invite me up. You look like you need someone to talk to.”

He nearly refused, nearly told her it wasn’t necessary. But he’d had too long of a weekend, had just spent almost nine hours on the road, and Bitty had gone home to John and it was tearing Jack up inside. He didn’t respond aloud, but he nodded toward her, and she followed through the doors, up the lift, and into his living room where she sat a space away from him on the couch.

“John is an asshole.” It was the first thing spoken between them since the car, and it felt oddly appropriate. Jack couldn’t help a small laugh, shrugging as she met his gaze with raised brows, her expression challenging. “I know he’s my friend—I know people think I’m probably an asshole by proxy because he’s my friend.”

“But?” Jack pressed.

Kate dragged a hand down her face. “But there are small parts of him that might be worth keeping around, if he can ever get his head out of his ass.”

“Bitty deserves better,” Jack said, feeling the heat of the words in his throat.

He was slightly startled by Kate’s sharp laugh. “Yeah he fucking does, and he’s had a choir of people telling him that for a long time now. And I think deep down, he knows.”

“More than deep down,” Jack said, then stopped because it wasn’t fair to share with Bitty had told him in the quiet confidence of their late-night bed-sharing. “I’ve seen you stand up to John, and I appreciate it. I know Bitty appreciates it. And I know he has to come to it himself.”

Kate bit her lip, then shifted closer. “He does, and since this is like, honesty hour or some shit, I’m going to tell you that I’m really fucking rooting for you. You seem like the kind of guy who’s in it for the long-haul, and I’m about a thousand percent sure Bitty’s in love with you.”

Jack startled, his face pinking. “He…did he say…”

“No,” Kate said. “But I watched Bitty fall in love with John—I’ve watched him fall in and out of love with that asshole over the years, and the way he looks at you…” She trailed off with a shrug. “It’s different, it’s more genuine, and deeper, and I don’t think he has a damn clue. Which is probably for the best. He needs to get over John, and figure shit out before he tries to jump into something else.”

Jack nodded. He knew exactly how true that was. “I wouldn’t date him right now. After everything—after Liam, and my accident, I wouldn’t be any good for him.”

“You’d be a hell of a lot better for him than John is, but I get your point.” She looked him up and down. “You don’t want to date me.”

Jack blinked, then flushed with shame. “It’s not…under normal circumstances, I might really like you. You’re so pretty and nice, and…”

“Jack,” she said, interrupting his flow of words. “I’m not hurt. The truth is, I’m pretty fucking aromantic and the idea of actually committing to someone makes me feel kind of…” She pulled a face. “But everyone’s always on my fucking case about it, so I let them set me up on dates, and when I met you, I thought being your friend might be nice. Plus, perks of being friends with an NHL star, right?”

“One who isn’t playing until next season, and who knows how well,” Jack muttered, but she just laughed, waving him off.

“You’ll be fine. Anyway, you’re keyed up, and super hot, so if you want to maybe make out for a bit, or I could totally suck your dick to take the edge off…”

Jack blinked at her, then laughed. “Um. How offended will you be if I pass?”

“If I say very, are you going to try and put the moves on me?” she asked, her poker-face a good one. Jack couldn’t read her.

“Um. Probably not,” he said. “But I’ll try and soften the blow.”

She stared, then threw her head back and laughed. “I like you. Shit.”

Jack opened his mouth to tell her the same, but suddenly the buzzer sounded from the little speaker, loud and obnoxious and startling. Something like panic settled in his gut, and Jack jumped up from his sofa, walking to the wall to push the speaker button. “Yes?”

“Hey. Hi, Jack. It’s me. I’m…um. Gosh, it’s so late, I should’ve gone home but I was…you know what, it’s fine.”

“Bits,” Jack started at the same time as Kate said, “Oh shit, is that Bitty?”

There was silence, then Bitty said, “Oh my gosh, you took Kate home. How silly. I didn’t even…here I am interrupting…I’m just gonna…” The speaker cut off.

“Fuck,” Jack said, and grabbed at his coat, but Kate caught his arm.

“Not so fast. You’ve got a broken leg. Give me five. I’ll get him.”

Jack nodded, feeling itchy and anxious all over as he watched her go, hating that he couldn’t chase him, hating that everything hurt, and he knew too much, and couldn’t do anything about it. He wanted Bitty. He wanted to fast-forward into the future where he was back to hockey, and Liam’s death was nothing more than an anniversary to be observed, and John was nothing but a past nightmare, and there was nothing standing in the way of the being in love.

Taking several steps backward, Jack’s knees hit the sofa and he collapsed, feeling a sharp pain in his thigh. It kept him grounded, even as he ached to take something for it, even as he wrung his hands between his knees and wondered if maybe Bitty and Kate would take off somewhere and leave him alone, no idea what was happening.

The five minutes it took for Kate to open the door again felt like five years. But eventually she did. She poked her head in, caught Jack’s eye, then winked. “I have to take off,” she said, “but someone could use some ice cream and maybe a friendly ear?”

Jack was on his feet instantly as Bitty stepped in, face splotchy, eyes red-rimmed and swimming with tears. He was wearing a hoodie and the same jeans from the trip, except he had one shoe missing, and his hair was a mess. He dragged his hand through it, then swiped it under his nose before offering Jack a sheepish wave. 

“Hey.”

“Bittle,” Jack said, very soft. He held out his hands. “Come here.”

Bitty did, as easy as he ever did anything with Jack, and soon he was wrapped in a firm embrace, the two of them on the sofa, Bitty sobbing into Jack’s chest. Jack stroked his hand up and down Bitty’s spine, shushing him with soothing tones, nonsensical words until Bitty stopped trembling and was able to look back up.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Jack offered.

Bitty’s brows furrowed, then he shrugged. “He was cheating on me.”

Jack stiffened. “John…”

“He…” Bitty let out a high, tight laugh on the verge of hysterical, and he dragged his hand down his face as he pulled away from Jack’s arms to sit back, knees gathered to his chest. “I walked in. The place was dark, but I could hear music and talking in his bedroom. I thought maybe he was skyping someone. I don’t know. I walked in and they were just…” Bitty made a vague, nonsense gesture with his free hand, clutching his shins tight with the other arm. “In his bed, just…there. Together. And he had the nerve to get pissed off at me!” Bitty laughed again, but tears broke free and Jack fought off the urge to wipe them away. “Started yelling at me, saying I wasn’t supposed to be home until later. Like oh, I’m so sorry I interrupted your cheating with my untimely arrival.”

“Is that what you told him?” Jack asked.

Bitty’s laugh was a little on the bitter side this time. “No. I was…stunned, I guess. I just…stared, gaping at him like a moron. Then I turned and ran off. He didn’t even come after me.” Bitty sniffed, swiping the hoodie sleeve against his nose, then shook his head. “I’m an idiot. I mean, he was right about that. I had the opportunity to say everything I’ve ever wanted to. He was in the wrong this time and there was no joking his way out of it and I just…stood there.”

“Bits,” Jack said, helpless against the hurt Bitty was feeling. He reached out, taking Bitty by the shoulders, holding him tight. “You are not an idiot. You’re allowed to react however you react. There’s no wrong answer, and you don’t owe him anything.”

Bitty gave him a broken smile. “Therapy?”

Jack shrugged, offering a smile of his own. “It’s true, isn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Bitty sucked in a breath, then let it out in a trembling whoosh. “Can I stay here? I…swear I won’t be any trouble, and I’ll stay out of your way. I just…if I go back to mine and he shows up and I’m alone I don’t…trust myself not to do something stupid. Like forgive him.”

Jack squeezed Bitty’s shoulders once more, then nodded. “You don’t need a reason to stay, Bits. Okay? I’m your friend and I’m here for you. Whatever you need.”

Bitty looked at him, his face unbearably fond. “I love you a whole lot, Jack. You know that, right?”

Jack nodded, because he did. Maybe not in the way he wanted Bitty to love him right now, but this was enough. It was perfect. Jack would take this Bitty if it was between this and no Bitty at all. “I love you too,” he said, and he watched Bitty’s face go warm and soft. Standing up, he winced at his leg, but offered both hands down and smiled when Bitty took them. “Come on. Let’s get you to bed. No sense in sharing the sofa when you know how good cuddles here are. And catching your boyfriend cheating definitely earns them.”

Bitty let out a shaking sigh, mouth open like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He simply followed Jack to the bedroom, let himself get tucked under the covers, and hugged tight.

Jack couldn’t offer much—he was never good at those things. But for the moment, he could offer this. And Bitty’s quiet, “Good night, hon,” and the way he clung tight to Jack in sleep, told Jack that for that moment, this was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I don't have a set number of chapters for this fic. I'm writing as I go, and it looks like it's going to be a long one so...hope that's okay with everyone. If I'm not done by the end of this month, expect bigger delays during the term, but I'll try and keep as regular as I can. x I'm kind of excited to do a super long fic. Haven't done one of those in a while.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is pretty angsty, I'm sorry. It'll be a little angsty for a while, but still remember--happy ending Zimbits.
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: discussions of infidelity, emotionally abusive relationships, grief. Please feel free to skip this chapter if that's triggering for you.

Jack woke the next morning alone in bed, the side where Bitty had occupied gone cold. Panic flared in his gut, and he breathed through it as he recounted the night before, wondering if perhaps he’d gone wrong somewhere—perhaps he’d given too much away.

They’d gone from the living room to the bedroom, Jack urging Bitty into borrowed pyjamas, urging him under the duvet and into a cuddle where Bitty cried and cried until there was nothing left beyond a scratchy throat and itchy eyes.

“I should’a seen it comin’,” Bitty said softly, sounding more confident in the dark of the late night. “I mean, in hindsight, I think I did. Things haven’t been great for a while, and he’s the exact sort’a guy I’d have warned any of y’all off without a second thought. I just…” He sighed, the sound shaky and soft. “I was such a fool.”

“You’re not,” Jack tried, but he stopped at the firm shake of Bitty’s head.

“I am. I’m a fool, Jack. I’m the idiot who thinks the asshole is gonna change for him, and I knew better. Deep in my bones, I knew better. It’s just…it’s been so long, you know? We been together so long I don’t really know how to do all this without him.” He sniffed, swiped his hand under his nose, then shuffled a little closer to Jack. “I owe y’all so many apologies. I know I’ve been an idiot about this and everyone’s been keepin’ their mouths shut this whole time.”

“Because we’d rather be here for you when you need us most, Bits. Everyone knew no matter what we said, you had your mind made up. No one would have let him _hurt_ you. Not anything you couldn’t protect yourself from.” Jack sighed, squeezing Bitty a little tighter. “Get some sleep, bud. We can talk about it all in the morning.”

He knew it would feel more raw the next day, but he could also tell that Bitty was as exhausted as he was from the long trip. Sleep was necessary, and it didn’t take long for Bitty’s breath to go even. Jack followed soon after.

And now here he was, alone, uncertain what happened.

He sat up, wincing at the pain in his leg, paying for the car trip. He wriggled into his brace, eased himself up, and used crutches to get to the kitchen where he found an empty space, and a plate of muffins that looked fresh baked. There was a note propped up next to them, in Bitty’s untidy scrawl.

**I woke up early, and you were out, so I didn’t want to wake you. I know I had the day off, but my mind is in a bad place, so I went to work. Feel free to come and say hi later if you’re up for it, but you’d also better rest that leg, mister. Talk soon, okay. Love, B.**

Jack felt warmed down to his toes, the affection he held for Bitty enough to take the edge off the pain. He made coffee and took a muffin into the living room and sat. His fingers toyed with his phone, debating about texting Bitty, but that didn’t seem like the right call. Instead he pulled up Linda and sent a text.

_Are you free for an over the phone chat?_

The reply came in less than a minute later. **I have twenty minutes now before my next session.**

Jack didn’t hesitate in calling, and she didn’t hesitate in answering. “Hey, Jack. How was the trip?”

“It was a lot,” Jack admitted. “It was long, and I was hurting, and my emotions were all over the place. I had a couple breakdowns about Liam, but it felt…” He shrugged, sighing. “Cathartic, I guess.”

“And how was it, seeing his mother?”

“Tough. His dad didn’t want to face me, thought I didn’t know about the cheating—about the baby. Sam seemed…I don’t know? I guess relieved, in a way, I think. Because she didn’t have to break terrible news to her dead son’s former boyfriend.”

“I think that’s a fair assessment,” Linda said. Her tone was patient, making it obvious she knew he needed to just get stuff out.

“The woman wants to give up the baby, and Sam doesn’t want that. She wants the baby in her life, and she…” He stopped, clearing his throat. “I offered to talk to her.”

“To the lover?” Linda asked.

Jack flushed. “Ah. Yeah. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t know that she’ll want to hear from me, and I don’t know what I could possibly say to her that might change her mind or…or help? I can’t think of a solution which would keep the baby in Sam’s life.” Jack bit the inside of his cheek, then said, “I got a strange feeling like maybe Sam wanted me to um. To adopt…”

“Jack, you know I don’t like to tell you what to do. My job is to help you make the best decisions you can make for yourself, but I don’t think adopting Liam’s baby…”

“No,” Jack said firmly, laughing a little. “No, crisse. _No._ I don’t want to adopt the baby, even if she asked me. That’s not…it’s not on the table. I think that would be her ideal situation, because we get along so well. She knows me and…and everything. But no.”

“Okay,” Linda said, and Jack assumed she was probably relieved she didn’t have to talk him out of something like that. “Well I don’t necessarily think reaching out to the woman is a bad idea, but just remember to respect her boundaries. If she doesn’t want anything to do with you…”

“I secretly kind of hope she doesn’t,” Jack admitted. “I…wouldn’t know what to say.”

“Well if it’s too much, Jack, don’t feel like you have to. This is a favour, not an obligation. This woman wasn’t anything to you, and you don’t owe any of this to anyone but yourself.”

Jack breathed out, feeling lighter. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” She hesitated. “Is there anything else…”

“I think I’m falling in love with Eric,” he blurted, and then almost laughed to hear himself say it aloud like that. It didn’t sound like a lie—in fact it sounded like the most honest thing he’d said in a while. “It’s terrible timing. I’m a mess, and he found his boyfriend cheating on him last night. But…but we’ve been getting closer, and I don’t…I’m not sure how to keep from crossing any lines. I’m not asking for advice, I just…felt like I needed to say it.”

“Does he know?” she asked.

Jack sighed again, pinching the bridge of his nose. “No. It didn’t seem fair to drop something like that on him when he was going through such a hard time.”

“That’s kind of you, Jack. And maybe it’s a good thing. Maybe working out how you really feel—working out how certain you are—will help when it’s finally a good time to talk to him.”

“Yeah,” Jack said from behind a sigh. “I should…I need to go. I have a team meeting this morning, and then I need to schedule my follow-up with the doctor. But I…thanks.”

“Of course. This is my job, but I actually am happy to help, Jack. Take care and I’ll see you soon.”

He rang off, then pushed himself up from the sofa, determined to get ready for his day, and do his best not to think about the swirling tornado of problems waiting for him just outside his front door.

*** 

The team meeting went well enough, and Jack’s frustration about not being able to be on the ice was at manageable levels during practise. He had lunch with the team, shot the shit with Sid for a while after, then sat with the trainers and made his back on the ice game-plan since his femur was healing at a decent rate—in spite of his set-back.

Having a set date for a proper practise was helping him feel buoyed, though he had the long stretch of summer ahead of him—off season to train, but there would be no real hockey.

“We were thinking you might want to help out during training camp,” George said when she caught Jack in the corridor. “We have our eye on a few people who I think you’d work well with, and by then you should be back to full contact. It would be nice to have you on board. If you can squeeze us in.”

Jack laughed. “At this point, I’ll take anything. Pee-wee if I have to. I hate being out for this long.”

“You’ll bounce back,” she assured him, and though he knew he might not ever play at absolute top-form again, he trusted her that they wanted him here.

His mood was definitely renewed as he got in his car and made the not-so surprising decision to pull up to Bitty’s. The café lobby looked fairly dead, as it always did this time of day, and he was still on crutches but made the walk in record time, stepping into the warm air.

Bitty was nowhere to be found, but Nursey was cleaning the steamer on the espresso machine, and Lardo was sat on the floor in front of the cashier desk, a canvas out in front of her as she twisted it from side to side, humming.

She glanced up when he entered, and her sigh was loud and heavy. “He went out for strawberries. He’s been baking non stop since he got in. It’s…”

“A mess?” Jack offered. He reached for a chair, easing himself down as he set his crutches to the side, and dragged his fingers through his hair. “He was with me last night.”

Her brows went up. “He didn’t say that. In fact, he really didn’t say shit except that we were all right, John was a piece of shit, and that he was sorry. We, of course, told him we knew all that but he had nothing to be sorry for, but you know him.”

Jack nodded solemnly, and looked up with a smile as Nursey came round the corner with tea. “So are we fucking this guy up or what?” he asked, dropping into the vacant seat across from Jack.

Jack took the tea, sipping it. “I mean…I don’t think that’s what he wants.”

“Yeah well, fuck that. I’ve been keeping my chill about this guy for way too long and…”

“And what,” Lardo said, standing up and brushing off her jeans with a few swipes of her palms. “John’s the kind of guy who would rile you all up, then call the fucking cops and get you all charged with assault. Bitty would never forgive himself, and that’s the last fucking thing he needs. We need to do something else.”

“Cleansing?” Nursey suggested.

Jack frowned. “What…?”

“Like a big party where we all get schwasty and have a bonfire and burn all of John’s shit,” Lardo said, grinning. “I’m not sure where the hell we’d pull that off, but I bet Bits would love it.”

Jack hummed, the idea having some merit. And it would be nice to focus on something other than his inevitable phone call to Rebecca, especially since he still had no idea what the hell he was going to say to her. “We could do it at my parents’ place. They have a pretty decent sized back yard, and they’re back in Montreal so they’re not using it.”

“What are we doing now?” came a voice from the back, and Jack looked up to see both Ransom and Holster walking out.

“Bonfire, burning all of John’s shit,” Lardo said. “Jack said we can use his parents’ place.”

“Oh fuck yes,” Holster said, pumping his fist. “Kegster to kiss that piece of shit goodbye, and in Bad Bob’s back yard. That’s a fucking send-off.”

Jack rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “You really think Bitty’s going to want to do this?”

Ransom shrugged, leaning on the pastry case. “I mean, he’s pretty wrecked right now, so we might need a few days, but I don’t think he’s going to want to hang on to this guy. I mean, he caught the dude like…inside someone else. If that’s not fucked, I don’t know what is.”

Jack felt his insides twisted, almost willing to risk an assault charge just to put his fist in the dude’s face. He breathed through it, then nodded determinedly. “I’ll look into getting what we need for the bonfire. You handle food and Bits.”

Ransom walked over with a fist-bump, and Jack gave it happily. “You’re good people, Jack. And not just because you’re Canadian, though that does automatically earn you some serious points.”

“Even if I’m Quebecois?” Jack chirped, and Ransom rolled his eyes.

“In this case, yes. We have to stick together.”

Holster flipped them both off before heading back into the kitchen, and Jack went back to his tea as the rest of the group got back to work. It was nice to exist there, as a part of something he didn’t have before—except it was empty without Bitty there, dancing, singing to his pop music, chirping everyone in his sweet, southern drawl.

Jack hated that he was hurting, wished he could cup his hands round Bitty and never let a single bad thing touch him again. It was unrealistic, but a harmless fantasy mostly, and he knew the others would have his back on that one. They were as fiercely protective, if not more.

*** 

**bits is saying hes in but wants to do it at the shop. u in?**

Jack didn’t think it was entirely the best idea to have a sort of makeshift bonfire inside a coffee shop, but it also wasn’t enough of a bad idea to keep him away. Jack hadn’t seen Bitty at all that week, a handful of texts from Bitty told Jack he needed space, and Jack wanted to give him that. But he missed him fiercely.

_I’m in. Just tell me when._

When, it turned out, was Saturday night. Jack was going to be late, the Pens had a home game against the Habs, and with two minutes on the clock and the score still tied at one-one, Jack knew they were going into OT. He sent a text to Lardo, and when the Pens finally scored against Price in the shootout, Jack all-but ran to the locker room as fast as his crutches could carry him, and didn’t bother making small-talk with anyone as he hurried into his clothes.

Having been out all season, he didn’t have to deal with press, and soon enough was tearing down the street, hoping to find decent parking near the shop.

_I’m here_ , Jack sent to Lardo, and a minute later, she was at the front door flicking open the lock, and ushering him inside.

Jack wasn’t entirely sure what to expect with the whole experience—but he definitely expected something a little more rowdy than rainbow fairy lights and soft music blaring from the café speakers. The group had made a sort of pillow-fort in the middle of the stacks in the bookshop, with loads of comforters, throw pillows, and anything soft they could find. There were baked goods—courtesy of Bitty, Jack assumed, and Bitty was there in the middle, his head pillowed on Chowder’s thigh, his eyes closed.

“Bro!” Ransom said, and Bitty glanced up, his face breaking into a soft smile.

“Hey, stranger. I thought maybe we’d finally lost you to the glamour of the NHL.”

Jack snorted as he eased down, trying to find a comfortable spot with his leg brace still on. “The very fact that you refer to anything about the NHL as glamour tells me you don’t know nearly enough.”

“I know y’all drive porches and wear Armani suits,” Bitty said, reaching over a floppy hand to smack Jack’s knee. “Though I also know what a giant nerd you are, so that must be sayin’ something.”

“Are we drinking?” Jack asked.

Bitty reached to his left, then held up a take-away cup and grinned. “Cocoa and schnapps. Nursey’s idea.”

“Because it’s fucking delicious,” Nursey said from a nest of blankets a few feet away.

Jack snagged the cup from Bitty and took a tiny sip. He had no intentions of drinking, but a little sip wouldn’t hurt. And it was good. “So…please tell me we’re not having the bonfire in the shop.”

“As tempting as it would be to not go outside,” Bitty said, taking his cup back and taking a huge drink, “I’d rather no lose the one thing I have left going for me. We have a barrel set up in back. Lards made sure it wouldn’t catch anything else.”

Jack didn’t think it was entirely legal, what they were doing, but he figured they could get it done before the police showed up.

“That’s what the drinking’s for,” Holster said, flopping onto the ground and laying his head on Ransom’s lap. “To keep us warm so we don’t freeze our tits off outside.”

Jack snorted, but didn’t say anything else. It was warm and cosy, everyone talking in low voices. It was soothing in a way Jack didn’t expect. He figured they’d be more hyper, trying to draw off those emotions to get Bitty to move on. This seemed…better.

“You ready for this, Bits?” Lardo asked softly. Jack followed her gaze to two boxes which were stacked near the edge of the fort.

Bitty sighed, pushing off Chowder and leaning on his elbow, staring at the boxes along with her. “I…”

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” Jack pointed out.

Bitty sighed, then dragged a hand down his face. “I know. I know, but…it feels like I _do_ have to. This week has been hell, because every one of my routines has somehow revolved round that man for nearly a decade and I don’t…” His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “I don’t know how to move on, but this seems like a pretty good start.”

Jack bit his lip, the nodded and pushed himself up. He held his hand down, and braced himself on his good leg to give Bitty leverage. As Bitty stood, Ransom whooped, and he and Holster ran for the boxes. The others filed out along with them, and left Jack and Bitty making the slow trek toward the kitchen.

“You’re going to be okay,” Jack murmured.

Bitty stopped, staring down at his feet, shoulders hunched near his ears. “I…I mean in theory, I get that. I do. And I keep tellin’ myself that you were able to deal with a death, and at least…” Bitty froze, then looked at Jack with wide eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…I’m not trying to _use_ your tragedy as some way to make myself feel better…”

“It’s okay,” Jack said softly, reaching out to touch Bitty’s shoulder. “I don’t know how I’d feel if Liam had just walked away instead of…how it happened. But I do know what it’s like to have to re-learn how to live your life after a huge change. It isn’t easy, but you’re strong. And you’re brave. And you’re not alone.”

“I just…” Bitty sighed, scrubbing his face hard with the flat of both palms. “Do you think he ever loved me? I mean…if I was this easy to toss to the side, why the hell was he with me for so long? Was it just because he wanted a punching bag? Is he that sick? Am I just that pathetic that he kept me around for amusement? I’m not sure I can take it if that was it, Jack. I mean, what does that make me?”

“Bitty, the fact that you tried to make it work, that you wanted to believe there was something in him worth loving, makes you a better person than any of us,” Jack said, his voice fierce. He moved his hand to cup the side of Bitty’s neck, keeping his fingers soft. “If he thought that made you a pushover, then that’s on him. That’s speaking of his character, not yours. There is no shame in wanting to believe in the best of people. It’s a rare quality, and it doesn’t make you weak.”

“Do you think he did though? Love me, I mean?”

Bitty’s voice was small, it was shattered, and it made Jack want to wrap him up and hold him, and promise that he’d never hurt like this again. But he couldn’t do that. “I don’t know,” he finally answered, choosing to be honest. “I don’t really know him, so I can’t say what he was or wasn’t capable of. But I can say—knowing you—that I don’t know how it’s possible for anyone to know you and not love you.”

“Tell that to my middle school bullies,” Bitty said, a little bitter, but there was a smile there too. “Really though, thanks.” He reached up, taking Jack’s hand away from his neck, squeezing his fingers. “Now, let’s go burn some shit before those boys decide to do it themselves. I really really don’t want to deal with an arson charge.”

*** 

It should have gone to plan. In fact, it did. They kept the fire contained, and Bitty was laughing and smiling by the time he finished with the last box. Most of the stuff was photos, old letters, a couple of jumpers that Bitty had always worn, but technically belonged to John.

The most expensive things in the burn pile were a pair of Louboutin skate sneakers which Bitty had spent an entire year’s savings on. “This is gonna hurt,” Bitty said, holding the shoes up to the fire. “Lord have mercy, are you sure no one wants these?”

“Sacrifice to the break-up gods,” Dex said quietly. “It’ll be worth it, trust me.”

Bitty rolled his eyes, but held the trainers up to the flames in the small barrel. “Alright well…”

He dropped them.

There was a cheer.

And then there was a voice.

“What the fuck? Are you fucking burning my stuff?”

The entire group turned, almost as one, and saw John stood there in the mouth of the alley with his arms folded over his chest. The soft glow from the cleansing fire made shadows play over his face like a cartoon Disney villain, exacerbated when he marched forward.

Jack watched Bitty take an involuntary step back, then another, until he collided with Holster who came to stand behind him, looking ready for a fight.

John did not seem deterred by it, though he was nearly a full head and at least fifty pounds lighter than Holster. “Are you seriously burning my shit.”

“Nothing you don’t deserve,” Bitty said, his voice strong, though Jack could hear the waver under his tone.

“My fifteen hundred dollar shoes,” John said, his jaw clenched.

“That I bought,” Bitty snapped. “And you sure as hell don’t deserve. I might have felt a little more generous if I hadn’t found you with your dick in the neighbour.”

John’s face dropped. “You really want to go there right now? Is this what you want? Our shit to play out in front of your friends?”

“Bro, you’d better watch your fucking mouth,” Ransom said, his voice dangerously low.

“Justin,” Bitty said quietly, reaching out for him.

“No,” Ransom said. “Fuck no, in fact. We’ve been holding our tongues this entire time because we fucking love you. But this piece of shit finally, _finally_ showed what he is, and I don’t have to do that anymore.”

Bitty bowed his head. “No, you don’t. You never did, but I appreciated it, hon. And right now I think I’d appreciate a moment alone with John.”

“Are you shitting me?” Holster asked, eyes wide. “Bits…”

“We’re not gonna kiss and make up, okay? I can promise you that,” Bitty said.

“If you think I want this fucking twink back in my bed…” John sneered with a laugh.

Ransom grabbed Holster just as he lunged, and Jack got a small wave of satisfaction to watch fear flicker across John’s face.

“I got this,” Bitty said firmly.

Jack cleared his throat. “We’re going inside. I’m coming back out if you’re not done in five minutes, Bits.”

Bitty looked at Jack for a long time, then nodded. It took a little more convincing, but eventually the group made it back inside the shop, and Jack sat by the door and watched as they all paced, muttering angry words, or faces drawn in stony silence.

“He’s not going to get back together with him,” Lardo said, but it sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

Jack shook his head. “He isn’t. He knows what he wants, and it isn’t John.” Jack closed his eyes for a second, Bitty’s words from earlier echoing in his head. “He needs some answers about something, and he needs closure.”

“I still expect your glorious hockey ass to get out there in exactly…” Holster looked at his phone. “Two minutes and eighteen seconds if he’s not back in here. You’re the only one I trust out of all of us to not knock a few of his teeth loose.”

Jack wasn’t entirely sure about that. It was only the fact that he reminded himself this wasn’t a hockey game and bashing someone’s face into the ground would get him in actual trouble—not just fines or a stretch in a penalty box—that kept him calm. His hands were still in fists at his sides.

The two minutes passed, and Jack gave it an extra one before he finally relented and headed for the door. He pushed it open quietly, poking his head out, and froze.

“…why I cheated on you?” John laughed. “I mean seriously, Eric. This is why. Because you’re a needy, obnoxious little shit. I thought it would get better, you know? But it didn’t. And there were so fucking many times I wanted to walk away, but everyone always said if I dumped your ass, you’d fall apart and I didn’t want to be responsible for some buzzfeed article on how I’m the biggest asshole because I drove my boyfriend to suicide or something.”

There was dead silence after that, and Jack pushed the door all the way open. Rage was taking over, and he was breathing through it, but staying calm right then was the hardest thing Jack had ever done. He locked eyes with John, his jaw set, and he could see the way John’s eyes went from defiant to unsure.

“You should leave,” Jack said flatly.

John scoffed and looked over at Bitty who had his arms crossed round his middle, his eyes half-lidded. “We’re not done here.”

“Yes, we are,” Bitty said. “We’re more than done. But you don’t get to leave before you know that there was never a chance in hell you’d ever break me. I was with you because I didn’t think anyone else would want to love you, and call me a fool, but I believed everyone deserved that chance. I was wrong, I guess. Not that it matters. All I really wanted tonight was answers, and I got them. But just know if you ever, _ever_ show your face around here, I can’t promise it’ll look the same again when you leave. And I’m not just talking about my friends.”

John’s mouth opened and closed, and for a second he looked like he was going to argue, but he deflated and turned on his heel, storming away.

In the silence, Jack could hear the last crackling of the fire in the barrel, and he could see the way Bitty’s hands were shaking. “Bits…”

“Can I just…” Bitty cleared his throat, then rolled his head back to stare at the sky. The light pollution was too strong to make out any of the stars, really, but the view was still soothing. “I’m tired of crying over him. Fuck, I am so tired of crying over him.”

“I know,” Jack said, very soft. He let out a surprised noise when Bitty suddenly crossed the distance between them, throwing his arms round Jack’s middle, huddling into his front.

Jack wasted no time wrapping his arms round Bitty, burying his nose in the top of Bitty’s hair much like he’d done the night Bitty found John. “Fuck him,” Bitty muttered, his voice muffled by the front of Jack’s shirt. “Fuck him so much.”

Jack just squeezed tighter, until Bitty pulled back a little. His face turned up, and Jack could make out the tear streaks along his flushed skin.

“I didn’t cry in front of him. So I guess that’s something. I think he was hoping he’d make me cry.”

Jack sighed, then reached up and brushed Bitty’s cheeks dry with the side of his thumb. “He doesn’t deserve a single second more of your time. And I know he’ll get it, because it doesn’t just stop, but he doesn’t deserve it.”

“No,” Bitty said, closing his eyes. “He really fucking doesn’t. And I really will rearrange his face if he ever shows up here again.”

Jack chuckled softly. “I think he knows. His face was…yeah. I think he knows.”

Bitty laughed with him, his eyes drifting open just a little. Their gazes locked, and Jack felt Bitty take a sudden, sharp breath. Then, without warning, he was on his toes, pushing into Jack’s space. Instinct and want took over, and Jack tugged him closer, and Bitty’s mouth parted, then pressed to Jack’s.

It was everything. It was everything Jack had been wanting for a really long time, and he clutched at Bitty’s shoulders, desperate to stay like this forever.

Only his brain kicked on a second later, and logic hit him like a sack of bricks. He squeezed his eyes shut tight, and very carefully, with the most gentle motion he could muster, eased Bitty away from him.

“This,” he said, his voice hoarse, his lips still tingling from where Bitty’s mouth was on him, “is not a good idea.”

Bitty swallowed. “I…” He went bright red, and stepped back, away from Jack’s grasp. “I’m sorry. Oh my god I shouldn’t have… I didn’t even ask, and my god, of course you wouldn’t want…I need to…” Before Jack could call out after him, he was gone, darting back inside the café.

If Jack was faster, he might have caught him, but his slow limp held him up, and by the time he got into the lobby of the shop, the only person left was Lardo.

“Where…?”

“They went after Bits,” she said.

Jack rubbed a hand down his face. “Merde.” He took several breaths. “He kissed me. He kissed me, and I stopped him and…”

“You did the right thing,” Lardo said quietly. “It’s been obvious to us for a while now, he likes you. He does. And I think you like him too…”

“I do,” Jack confirmed, not willing to let there be any room for doubt. “I’m not in a place I should be in a relationship right now but…I do.”

“You did the right thing,” Lardo repeated. “He’s going to need time, and you’re still healing. This is…Bitty doesn’t deal well with change, or focusing on himself. He’s got a lot he needs to get through. Just…maybe try and be there when he finally makes it out the other side.”

Jack nodded, breathing through the anxious mess of feelings. He brushed the tips of his fingers along his lips, then dropped his hands to his sides. “I’m not going anywhere. However long he needs, I’m going to be here.”

Lardo looked at him for a long moment, then crossed the room and threw her arms round him. She was smaller than Bitty, and tucked right up against him, and it was one of the best hugs Jack had ever had in his life. “He’ll be alright,” she said after a long moment, and Jack was sure he wasn’t imagining the tone in her voice that still sounded like she was trying to convince herself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: Jack tries to decide how to help with the baby problem, Bitty makes a decision on how to put his life back together.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow this took ages, I'm sorry. There's not a lot of warnings for this chapter--just some emotional aftermath of what happened with the break-up. And there's a few months time jump near the end. I'll try and get another update before my term starts next week, but no promises x

Jack wasn’t exactly sure how to process everything, the moment he came to a stop in front of the door and the lights were off. The soft, orange sign which glowed, “open” every day, was pallid and grey in the dusty window. Jack blinked, like maybe if he closed his eyes hard enough, when he opened them things would be back to normal.

They were not.

He wandered round the back, thinking maybe something had happened, thinking maybe there was some clue, but the alley looked the same as it had the night before—a burnt out hollow which showed the remnants of the bonfire, the locked service door, the little sign that said, “for deliveries, please ring bell.”

It was normal, and it was the opposite of normal, and his heart was beating too hard and too fast in his chest. He stumbled back, hitting a pile of old delivery crates, and sat on the edge, trying to get control of himself. His swirling thoughts took a while to right themselves, but when he could think through his panic, he remembered he had a phone, with plenty of numbers to get a hold of someone who might know something. Anything.

Lardo was first—the most reliable, and she picked up on the second ring. “What’s up, Jack?”

“The shop’s closed.”

“Uhhhh yeahhhh,” she drawled. There was a huff, like she was standing up, then the sound of a door closing. A rushing sound told Jack she’d gone outside, standing in the firm breeze of her balcony. “Yeah uh…so he’s gone.”

Jack blinked. “What?”

“Bitty,” Lardo said, then sighed. “He just kind of packed up and bailed. He sent me a text telling me that he was going to contact the landlord so the shop wouldn’t be evicted or anything, but he sort of just peaced out, dude. Whatever the fuck happened last night…”

“We kissed,” Jack blurted.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that wasn’t what drove Bitty out of town,” Lardo said quietly. “I’m gonna guess whatever that fuck-stick of an ex said to him did it.”

Jack couldn’t entirely argue there, but it didn’t help him feel better. “I pushed him away,” he said. “He kissed me, and I pushed him away and he probably thinks I rejected him. After everything John did…”

“Jack,” Lardo said, and her matter of fact tone made him go instantly quiet. “Look, I don’t know what Bitty’s thinking right now. He sort of just disappeared on me without talking to me. So I can’t pretend like I don’t know if that shit upset him or not. But if it did, he’ll calm down. He’ll realise you did the right thing for the both of you, okay? He’s not going to be gone forever, but John really fucked him up and he needs space.”

“I just worry,” Jack confessed.

Lardo breathed out a sigh. “I know. Me too.” After a beat, “Why don’t you come over later, yeah? We can paint shit and be worried together.” 

It startled Jack, because although he did consider everyone from the shop friends, it had always revolved round Bitty, and he hadn’t even considered it might be outside him, too. “Okay,” he said eventually. “I have practise today, and a team meeting, then a check-up. But I can come by after. I’ll…I’ll get dinner.”

“Swawesome,” Lardo said. “I could really go for some dece Mexican food. Can I text you a few places?”

“Please,” Jack said, and although he didn’t feel better about Bitty going missing, he felt more capable of handling the change. He tucked his phone into his pocket as he headed for his car, and before he got in, his phone buzzed with a text. He made himself sit, switch the engine on, and drive without looking. It would be hard not to fixate, but Jack was going to do his damnest to give Bitty whatever it was he needed.

*** 

Jack’s fingers shook as he sat on the stoop in front of his building, his phone clenched in his hands. Apart from Bitty disappearing, and from the others trying to go about business as usual, Jack had other things on his mind. Namely making the phone call he’d promised to make a few weeks back. Part of him wanted to roll over and sleep until Rebecca had the baby. Until it was all over, and there wasn’t anything he could do, even if he tried. But he owed Sam to at least try. Having to mourn their son was enough, did they really have to lose their grandchild in the process?

He breathed, then pushed send on the number which had been on his screen for the last half hour.

It rang, and it rang.

“Please don’t answer. Please just…”

“Hello? Look, this isn’t a good time so…”

“Rebecca? This is uh…this is Jack. Zimmermann.”

There was a sudden silence, and just when Jack went to see if maybe she’d ended the call, she said in a very small voice, “What do you want?”

“To talk?” Jack said, then almost laughed because the whole thing sounded so absurd. “I’m sorry. God, I know this is so…I shouldn’t be doing this but…”

“But Sam asked you to plead her case?” Her voice was rough, frustrated. “I get why she doesn’t want to lose this baby, but it’s not like she can take care of it, right? And I didn’t…we weren’t even sure what the fuck we were going to do, then some drunk asshole has to come along and…” Her voice trailed off, and Jack swore he heard a faint sob before she cleared her throat and came back on. “I can’t do this. I’m sorry, but I can’t look at a baby and think about it every second of every day. I can’t.”

“I understand,” Jack said. “I was just hoping I…might be able to help in some way. Find…find a solution. Find someone who might want to…to be a parent and won’t cut his parents out.” Jack couldn’t bring himself to say Liam’s name to her, and weirdly, it stung.

She held her breath again. “You’re not saying that you…”

“No,” Jack said firmly, almost sharply. “No I…I don’t think even if I was in a place where I could be a good parent that it would be a good idea. But I…I’d like to try. I’d like to help. His parents, they’re good people.”

“I know,” she said, soft and a little shy. “They didn’t like me much, you know? After they found out. They took your side.”

“They didn’t know it was over between us,” Jack told her. “They know now. They know what happened.”

Rebecca sighed. “I’m due in a couple of months, I haven’t made any decisions yet except that I don’t want to keep this baby. So if you like…know some people or whatever, then give me a call, yeah? And if I…if I find someone…”

“Yeah,” Jack said, and closed his eyes, pushing his hand to his forehead. “Yeah. Just let me know.”

Rebecca was silent for a moment, then said, “Take care of yourself, Jack.” Then the line went dead.

Jack swallowed thickly and thought, _well, at least that was something._ He wasn’t sure it made a difference, but he could at least ask around.

*** 

There was no word from Eric, and though Jack made a concentrated effort to visit with the people from the shop, his time with them dwindled to the occasional weekly hang-out at Lardo’s for coffee and sometimes painting. The mood was sombre, and as the weeks passed, Jack threw himself more and more into team things, trying to do his best not to text Bitty and demand to know why, to know if he was ever coming home.

He wanted it to be his business, but frankly, it wasn’t.

At the team dinner, Jack pushed his chicken round his plate, trying to keep his mind focused on the months ahead as he was released to harder training. The guys were all laughing, chirping each other, and Jack was doing his best to stay focused, but every time he blinked, he saw Bitty’s devastated face. Every time he took a moment, he could see the way Bitty crumbled apart when Jack had pushed him away.

He looked up when he saw George walk back into the room, her face drawn into a frown which was uncharacteristic of her. She wasn’t a big smiler, but she carried her emotions in her eyes, and Jack could see she was struggling. She attempted to square her shoulders as she resumed her seat, offering Jack a tiny grin.

“Sorry about that. Just…” She stopped, suddenly uncertain of her words which was even less like her than her morose attitude.

“Is everything okay?” Jack asked.

She licked her lips, then shrugged. “Personal thing. Not…really going our way, you know? And Amelia’s had a rough month at work so this was just kind of the cherry on the cake.” She poked her fork into a pile of spinach, but didn’t take a bite. “Are you doing alright, Jack? I was happy to get the report from PT, but I figured you’d be a little more enthused than this.”

“Also personal stuff,” Jack admitted.

She gave him a long look, then glanced down the table at the guys who were off in their own world of story-telling, and then she leant toward him. “One of the bartenders here is also an amazing barista—and he can do a latte with the house chai that will change your world. You want to go over to the bar?”

Jack didn’t need asking twice. He felt a sudden almost desperation to be away from the chaos of his team, and he pushed up from the table, following George through the restaurant, up to the long bar where Jack could see a shelf of alcohol, and next to that a rather large, expensive looking espresso machine.

George leant over the bar, grabbing the attention of the guy, and ordered two of the lattes before sitting back on the stool. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.

Jack bit his lip, then shrugged. “A friend of mine was recently hurt in a relationship. I…tried to help, and I think I made it worse.”

“The baker, right? Eric?” she asked.

Jack flushed, wondering how transparent he really had been. “Yeah. He ah…” He didn’t want to relive that night, so he just shrugged. “He texted a friend of ours, so I know he’s okay. But he’s been total radio silence since then and it’s not really doing my anxiety a lot of favours.”

“Therapy helping?” she asked, and paused to hand over one of the mugs that the bartender pushed across the bar top.

Jack took a sip, then sighed at the spicy, creamy flavour. “As much as it ever does. Therapy points me in the direction of how to help myself more than cures me.”

“Trust me, Jack. I know. I’ve done my years,” George said. She hesitated, then said, “Amelia and I are trying to have a baby.”

Jack blinked, then smiled. “Oh yeah? That’s great!”

“It would be, but shit’s complicated,” she said, sounding more casual than she normally did in conversation with him. Her hands gripped her chai mug tightly, and he could see a faint stress tremor in them. “Our only real option is adopting a kid—but we got so much pushback from so many places because you know…we’re lesbians, Amelia’s a trans woman, I’m always busy…” She ran her hand through her hair. “So we decided best to go private, and it’s fine—we can afford the fees. But this is the third parent that pulled out and…shit.” She heaved another, heavy sigh. “It was only a month away. We had everything ready to go and I just…I’m just not sure this uphill battle’s worth it anymore, but she wants this so badly.”

Jack’s heart ached for her, and he didn’t know what to say. He’d never been faced with a problem like this before, and he didn’t know what to say.

And then suddenly…he did. Or he might have. He hesitated, wondering if Rebecca would even begin to consider something like this, especially with how close Jack was to George. And how would George feel if Jack brought it up, and then Rebecca rejected her. Jack didn’t want to bring anyone anymore pain.

“You’ve got your thinking face on, Zimmermann,” George said, kicking her foot out at him.

He took a breath, then decided to be brave. “I um…so the thing is,” he said, closing his eyes for a second. “I know someone who wants to give their child up for adoption. And I’ve been…trying to come up with a way to help because it’s sort of…complicated.”

George eyed him carefully. “Complicated how?”

Jack bit his lip, then blurted out, “The baby’s Liam’s, and his mother wants to be part of the child’s life.”

George stared at him for a long moment, then sighed out, “Dios mío, Jack. Are you kidding?”

Jack flushed hard. “No. No but…I’m sorry. That was probably the most inappropriate thing to say. I just…it seemed um…”

George was still looking at him, a long considering gaze. “Can I talk to Amelia about it? I can’t promise she’ll be on board with this—it kind of sounds like a shit-show, but…well…we’ve already gone through the wringer so I guess…it’s worth at least sleeping on it.”

Jack managed to offer her a small smile. “If it helps, I don’t want any part of this. I mean…I don’t feel attached to the baby in some way because it was…because of Liam. It’s just, Sam’s a good person, and I understand where Rebecca’s coming from. And I want you to be happy, George. You’ve stood by me this entire time, ensured that I wasn’t…you know. Over. So if there’s some way—whatever small way—that I can help, I’d like to try. I can give you Rebecca’s number.”

“Let me call you in a few days, yeah?” George said, but there was something in her tone that told Jack maybe—just maybe—this wasn’t over yet.

*** 

In the locker room the three days later, as Jack was lacing up his skates, he glanced up to see George looking at him with a strange expression. He looked to his right and left, but most of the guys had hit the ice already, so he sat back and made a, ‘go ahead’ gesture to her.

She hesitated, then said, “She’s due in late June. We’re meeting with her next week to talk but it seems…” George stopped, then said, “She seems serious about this. That she just wants her kid to be happy, and wants to move on.”

Jack bowed his head. “It’s the one thing she and I understand about each other.”

George winced. “Look, if me doing this…”

“It might always be weird,” Jack said, interrupting her quickly. “It’s not going to be Liam’s baby. If you and Amelia…” He cleared his throat. “It’ll be your baby. It’ll still be strange, but not strange enough you shouldn’t do it. He wasn’t a bad person, he just wasn’t any good for me, and there’s a pretty big list of people like that in my past.” Jack passed a hand down his face, then looked at her carefully. “He was the kind of person that would have wanted people like you and Amelia to have his baby, because after meeting you, he would have known the two of you are going to do an amazing job.”

George’s eyes were bright, dry but a little more narrow than usual, and when she spoke, her voice was a little hoarse. “I’ll talk to his mother. Maybe not now. I’m…I don’t want to get my hopes up again just yet but…when it happens…”

“She would appreciate that,” Jack said. It was all he could say. He hadn’t expected Liam’s death to complicate his life like this, but if something good like this could come out of it—if George, who had fought for Jack from the moment he was traded—could get something she and her wife desperately wanted, he didn’t mind a little complication.

“You should get out there. The team’s waiting,” she said after a bit.

Jack smiled at her, then pushed up from the bench and began the slow walk toward the ice.

*** 

Later that night, Jack lay in his bed going between a text conversation with Lardo telling her all about the baby and George, to an old text thread he’d had with Bitty.

_I’m sorry, I know you’re feeling awful, but is there anything I can do?_

**Don’t you worry about me, sweetpea. I’ll get through it. Always do. You coming by the shop later?**

Jack hadn’t answered that text, because he’d been round the corner and had just come in. When Lardo told Jack that Bitty wanted space, Jack had refrained, but it was getting harder now, with every passing second. He knew Bitty was alive, he was safe, he was in Georgia right now, and then…well, no one knew his plans after that.

But somehow knowing he was safe wasn’t enough. Jack missed him fiercely, and even if he still wasn’t ready to be in a relationship, he didn’t want to lose this—lose his chance.

He hesitated, then tapped out a quick message. _I know the night you left was messed up. I just need you to know I didn’t push you away because I didn’t want you. I just didn’t want to make anything worse. I understand you need your space, but I want you to know that I miss you. I hope you come home soon._

It took him an hour to find the courage to send it, but eventually he did. Then he put his phone on silent, flicked off the light, and tried to sleep.

*** 

Jack woke with the sun, and it was as though he hadn’t slept at all. His mind was right back there with sending the text, and he felt a wave of panic and fear. His phone sat—face down—on the nightstand. There was no telling what Bitty might have said—understanding, rejection, anger, hate. He might not have responded at all, and Jack wasn’t sure if that would be better or worse.

But he had to face this. He had to be brave. His fingers trembled as he reached for the small device, and he felt his breath hitch when he saw the green light blinking with a notification.

**Bitty** , sat across the screen.

He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them, and swiped the message open.

_I’m not ready to talk. But I miss you too._

It wasn’t much. It was hardly anything, but right in that moment, it felt like everything.

*** 

**Late Spring**

“I think you’re ready.”

Jack blinked, then breathed out, and felt the strangest weight off his chest. Part of him wanted to laugh, the other part wanted to cry. Instead he stood up from the exam table, flexed his thighs, then nodded. He’d been skating for a while now. He’d been on light contact, but he’d donned the Pens uniform, and had done every practise as long as the trainers would let him go. His leg still twinged from time to time, and he wasn’t as agile as he’d been before the accident.

But he wasn’t off the team. He wasn’t out of the running.

Pre-season would be starting up in just a few months, and he finally felt like he could get back to his life. At least, as back to it as he’d ever been. There was still a strange, gaping hole in the centre of his chest in the shape of a missing bookshop owner, but there was nothing he could do about that.

In the months Bitty had been gone, Jack received exactly six texts—all of them in response to his own—all of them existing to just let Jack know that yes, Bitty was still alive.

In March, Jack had gotten a frantic call from Lardo saying the shop was about to be evicted because Bitty hadn’t bothered with the rent in two months. Jack didn’t hesitate in writing the cheque, didn’t hesitate in writing one each month from then until now. They agreed not to tell Bitty, not to discuss it with him until he came back.

Jack and Lardo agreed to give it until August, and if Bitty really was gone, they’d let it go. But for now, none of them wanted to lose hope.

“You’re heading up to Montreal, right?” his physical therapist, Adam, said as he handed Jack his shoe.

Jack nodded, bending over to do up the laces. “For a couple of weeks. Then I’ll be back down to help with camps. It’ll be a good way to get my bearings back.”

“Just remember to take it easy. I mean, I know you hockey players and I know you’re not going to listen to me…” 

Jack couldn’t help a small chuckle as he righted himself. “Yeah well…I don’t actually want to be back here, so I’m going to try.”

“Cold,” Adam said, and Jack flushed before Adam laughed and held up a hand. “I’m kidding, man. But I am going to miss that famous Zimmermann ass. And the sarcasm.”

Jack snorted a laugh. “Most people can’t tell.”

“Well, I’m not most people.”

There was a sudden silence, a profound moment where Jack realised something: Adam was flirting. His instinct was to recoil, to say he was flattered, but he was taken. Or better, to ignore it completely.

But Adam wasn’t giving up. “Now that you’re not my patient…”

Jack breathed against his panic, and a small voice reminded him that he wasn’t exactly taken. His ex was dead, Bitty was still MIA apart from the occasional text letting them know he was still breathing, and really there was nothing holding him back. Bitty missed him, but there was no promise of anything, and Jack suddenly realised he might be doing himself a disservice by rejecting anyone that came along.

Adam was attractive, even Jack who was usually oblivious to those sorts of things could see that. Rich black hair, dark olive skin, deep brown eyes—more golden than Bitty’s reddish brown. He was tall, muscular, great smile—not as bright as Bitty’s but…

Jack realised what he was doing, and breathed out. “I can’t,” he made himself say. “I’m still a hot mess in my head and it wouldn’t be at all fair to you if I pretended like anything could work out.”

He could see the torn expression on Adam’s face—the sting of rejection, the appreciation of his honesty. He shrugged, then reached into his pocket and grabbed what looked like a name card out of it. “Look, my number is on here, and if you change your mind, or…you know. Whatever? You text me, okay?”

Jack took it, then let Adam give him a quick hug before he pulled back. “Thanks.”

“Score a goal for me your first game, alright?” When Jack laughed, Adam winked, then clapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck out there, man. I know you’re going to do amazing.”

Jack didn’t leave feeling great, but he felt better than he had in weeks.

*** 

“What time is your flight?” Kate’s bossy tone demanded as Jack stood over the open case at the edge of his bed. She had called him fifteen minutes before, and used up fourteen of those minutes to talk about what a terrible day, and terrible flight she had coming into Pittsburgh.

“It’s not until noon tomorrow, why?” Jack asked as he added in his yellow trainers. Chances are his dad would want to run at least one of the days he was there.

“I need to go out and get schwasted, my dude. And everyone else is fucking busy. Plus I miss that gorgeous hockey butt of yours.”

Jack rolled his eyes. “I can’t get schwasted.”

“Then you can be my DD,” she said, her tone edging into whining. “Jack, please. Seriously, I just need a friendly face, and I have a story you’re really gonna like.”

“What story?” he asked, his tone dry as he found his favourite sleep shirt and tucked it in next to his socks. He flipped the case closed and did the zip.

“It’s about John.”

Jack’s attention went immediately into the conversation. “What about him?” He couldn’t hide the angry, hateful tone from creeping into his words, and frankly, he didn’t want to. Kate had been careful not to bring John up since the incident with Bitty, and Jack had never been brave enough to ask her if she was still friendly with him.

“Nah, bro,” she said. “That’s my incentive to get you to come out. Please. I’m actually, literally begging here.”

Jack sighed. “Fine. Meet me at the local, that one dive bar you like so much near mine. They have a jazz pianist there tonight.” Jack had only known from passing the sign on his way back from his morning run, but he knew it was enough to get her to say yes, and it meant he would be close to his house so they wouldn’t have to drive anywhere.

“I’m there. Seven.”

The line went dead, and Jack sighed as he stared at the screen. Talking to Kate was the only remaining link Jack had between Bitty and the horrible situation with John. He liked her, but there was always a soreness around it, like picking at an old scab that just didn’t want to scar completely. 

He had a sudden urge to text Bitty, but he didn’t think it would do any good. Since the I miss you text he’d gotten, there had never been more than one or two words whenever Jack tried, and he was starting to lose faith that those feelings remained.

For all he knew, Bitty had moved on, gotten a boyfriend, a new job, settled in somewhere with a house and a dog and was being loved properly and treated right. Jack wasn’t entirely sure he could give Bitty that, but he knew he’d try. He’d give up everything for just the chance.

But he also didn’t want to say it. Putting that sort of pressure on Bitty didn’t feel fair. So he suffered in his silence.

Glancing at the clock, he saw he had a few hours to finish tidying up the house before Kate arrived, so he set himself to the task, ignoring for now, the ache in his chest.

*** 

Kate was already there when Jack walked through the doors, and she waved him over with a bright smile, dragging him into a hug as he took the chair near hers.

“God, you look fucking amazing,” she said, eyeing his chest which was bulked up from all the weight lifting he’d been restricted to. “How’s it going?”

“I’m cleared for full contact, and I’m on the roster for next season,” Jack said. Barring any sudden trades, he knew, but he didn’t want to put that out there into the universe. “I’m going to be helping out with prospect camp this summer.”

“Oh my god, I’m so happy for you,” she said, then took a long drink of what looked like a tall vodka soda with extra limes shoved in between chunks of ice. Swiping her hand across her mouth, she gave him a careful look. “Do you want to ask, or should I just put you out of your misery?”

Jack’s answer was derailed by the server, so he ordered a refill of Kate’s drink, a water for himself, and handed over his card to start them a tab. When the server walked off, he turned his gaze back to Kate. “Don’t make me beg. I’m tired.”

She rolled her eyes. “God, you are the least fun. But I love you so…fine.” She finished off her drink, then sat back and crossed her arms. “I was in New York visiting my sister—she just had another baby so I’m doing my obligatory aunt duties, right? And she lives near Central Park so I decide, what the hell, great place for a run. I’m turning this corner and there’s all these people, and these barricades or whatever, and I realise there’s a photoshoot going on. I stop, because you know—whatever, I’m nosy. And there he is. Fucking John.”

Jack drew his bottom lip into his mouth. “Isn’t he a sport…journalist or something?”

Kate shrugged. “Yeah, man. He’s working for this LGBT+ magazine—and he covers sport and what not. I mean, they do all sorts of shit in Central Park so it’s not like…a surprise. But I haven’t seen him since the shit with Bitty and I’m like…livid.”

Jack relaxed his shoulders at that, not realising how tense he’d been about not knowing until right then. “Yeah,” he breathed.

“Better yet…guess who they’re shooting?”

Jack raised a brow. “I can’t even begin to guess.”

“Camilla Collins.”

Jack choked a little. He hadn’t talked to her in quite a while, and it wasn’t entirely a surprise—he hadn’t expected that, at all.

“So I remember Bits telling me that you and Camilla used to date, right? And you’re still friends. So obviously I have to watch.”

Jack, unsure where this was going, leant his elbow on the table. “Obviously,” he murmured.

Kate gave him a very pleased grin. “So she’s doing a few poses, then John comes over to interview her and he’s turning up the charm like nothing. Leaning into her space, getting her laughing, same shit I saw him do with Bits when he was first trying wheel him. And she seems kind of into it, and he looks so fucking smug, I just want to walk over there and punch him in the face. Let me tell you, my dude, it took some real restraint to keep myself in check.”

“I bet,” Jack said, his voice hotter than he meant it to be.

“Anyway, there’s this table full of food and water bottles and shit not far from where I’m standing, so when she goes to get some water, I walk up to the barrier and I was like, Yo! Camilla! She gives me that, oh god another fan look, but she smiles, and then I’m like, Jack Zimmermann says hi.”

“You used me,” Jack said, but couldn’t hide his grin.

Kate shrugged shamelessly. “It got me over the barrier. So we start chatting and I was like oh yeah, Jack and I are great friends and he talks about what a nice person you are, blah blah. She’s so nice, by the way, like goddamn if I wasn’t aro as fuck I’d probably want to date her.”

Jack laughed, feeling a burst of fondness for her in his chest. “Yeah, she’s really great.”

Kate’s grin widened. “Anyway, so she’s asking how you are, and I kind of…maybe sort of eased into the whole Bitty thing. Talking about how your best friend was recently heartbroken, and how sweet he is, and everything. Then I tell her what John did, right? Then, when she’s like shaking with rage, I look over and get all quiet and I’m like, oh my god, that’s him! That’s him right there, what are the chances.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “You didn’t.”

“Of course I did, don’t you know me at all? So Camilla, as Bits would say, bless her precious fucking heart, marches over there and confronts him and the asshole just like…admits it. Starts calling Bitty a twink and she just…punches him. Right in the fucking mouth. It’s pandemonium after that. I managed to get a picture of him, his lip all bloody and swollen right before he gets carted off, and twenty minutes later she comes up and goes, thank you. I had no idea he was so awful. He kept asking me to dinner and I was actually thinking about it. Then she tells me he was fucking fired from that shoot.”

Jack couldn’t help his laugh, deep-chested and so satisfied he could almost cry. “Really?”

“I love Bits,” Kate said, her voice going low and serious. “No one fucks with the people I love. If I can fuck up every job he gets from now until he’s destitute and ready to retire, I will.” She closed her hand round the new drink the server brought over, then said, “I texted the picture to Bitty.”

Jack’s eyes widened. “What did he say?”

“Exactly what you’d expect,” Kate replied with a shrug.

Jack couldn’t help another grin. “Something like,” he affected his terrible southern accent, “Bless your heart, honey, you should not have done that. But thank you.”

“God, you two are meant for each other,” Kate groaned, shaking her head. “Are you two talking yet?”

Jack felt his stomach twist. “Ah. Well…no. A couple texts here and there over the last few months but…I think I might have ruined it.”

She stared him in the face, her eyes narrowed and serious. “There’s no way in hell. He’s been gone on you since the day you walked into that damn shop, Jack. Whatever he’s figuring out, he’ll get there. Please, please god, do not give up on him. I won’t trust his heart with anyone else on the planet but you.”

Jack swallowed, then nodded. “I’m not giving up, Kate. I don’t think I could, even if I wanted to.”

*** 

It was late by the time Jack got back to his apartment. Kate took an uber home, and Jack stripped down to boxers and laid on the bed, staring at the ceiling. He replayed every moment of his conversation with Kate, and then reached for his phone.

He hesitated, but he could see the fire in her eyes when she insisted that Jack not give up, that Bitty still… felt something for him.

_Hey, Bits. I just had a drink with Kate who told me you might have gotten to see a picture with John’s face busted up._

He hit send, then waited. When his phone lit up moments later, his heart felt like it was going to beat out of his chest.

**Oh my lord, yes she did. That girl, I swear. I can’t believe she did that. I mean, yes I can believe it but…**

**She’s a good seed, that Kate.**

_She is._ Jack wondered if maybe he should write more. This was the most Bitty had said to him since before he left, and he was terrified to let it die off. But a second later, he realised it wasn’t necessary. Bitty wasn’t done.

**I hope you two had a good date.**

_It wasn’t a date. She just wanted to see a friendly face. She knows my heart belongs to one person._

**Jack…**

_I don’t mean for any of this to be too much for you, but I should have told you how I felt, even if I wasn’t ready to be with anyone. I just…I miss you. And not being able to see you all this time hurts._

**Lord, I miss you. Every day, Jack. I miss you. I needed this. I know I did. I was just afraid I’d come home and everything would be…gone. You would have moved on, everyone would be mad at me for disappearing. Lord knows what happened to my shop…**

_It’s there, safe, waiting for you. We wouldn’t let anything happen to it._

**Jack! I haven’t paid rent in months!**

_We took care of it. You mean enough to all of us, Bits. It’s there when you’re ready to come home._

**Oh Jack. Oh I…**

**I don’t know what to say.**

**I’m…**

_You don’t have to say anything._

**I think I’m ready. Or I will be soon. I…**

Two minutes passed before Jack got another text.

**Where are you right now?**

_Home. In bed. I have a flight to Montreal tomorrow to see my parents for a few weeks, then I’m back here to help with the prospect camps._ Jack held his breath, waiting to see where Bitty was going with that question.

**Can we talk? In a few days, maybe? I know you’ll be in Canada but…maybe Skype?**

_Yes. Yes, Bits. Any time. I…I would love to see your face._

**Mr Zimmermann, you are real good at making me blush. * blush emoji * I’ll text you, okay? I’ll text you.**

_Please._ Jack breathed through his desire to beg. _Please just…don’t shut me out again._

**I never meant to. All of this was just a lot. But we can talk about it in a few days. Lord, I miss you, and I promise I’ll text you.**

_I believe you. Have a good night, okay?_

**You too, Jack. And I can’t wait to see you face either. Sleep well.**

Jack let that be the last word, until a few days later, when his skype began to light up, and Bitty’s face filled the screen.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnd here we go....

It was obvious Jack’s parents noticed the shift in his mood and attitude. He’d overheard his father muttering something about how he thought Jack would be a little more excited to be back on the ice, and his mother muttering back that something must have happened. They knew about the baby, of course, and although Jack had excused himself from the adoption process George was going through, it was still…a little strange.

But that wasn’t it, and Jack didn’t exactly know how to explain to his parents that his life had more than moved on from Liam. That he was morose, and he was sad, but also hopeful because there was a potential future, if only he was patient. And it had nothing to do with hockey.

He’d been texting Bitty with more frequency than before, which eased some of his anxiety about whether or not he’d see Bitty again—the messages friendly and hopeful which told Jack that no matter what, he at least hadn’t lost a friend. At night, when they were more sleepy, the messages were a little more open, a little more vulnerable.

**Sometimes all I want is to get on a plane and fly to where you are, and sleep for the next week in your arms. Nothing felt better than when you pulled me into that bed and held me, Jack. I can’t believe how foolish I was for not seeing it sooner.**

Jack held on to that one—planned to save it as long as he could.

He was leaving Montreal in three days, and it was just before Jack was getting ready for bed that another message pinged through.

**Hey, I know it’s late, but is there any chance you wanna skype right now?**

Jack could have been bleeding out and his answer still would have been the same. _Give me five. I just got out of the shower._

The next message pinging through was Bitty’s skype handle, and Jack rushed through brushing his teeth, combing his hair, and slipping into comfortable pyjamas. He propped his tablet up on his thighs, then found Bitty’s profile, and hit call.

The music pinged softly, then the screen lagged, and then there he was. Jack felt strangely startled that Bitty didn’t look any different. His face was the same—settled in a soft grin that seemed pleased to see Jack. He was wearing a threadbare t-shirt, pulled tight across his torso. His hair was a little more mussed than usual—his cowlick a bit more unruly from lack of product, and he was clutching something that looked like a stuffed rabbit under his left arm.

“Hey, sweetpea,” Bitty said.

Jack felt something unknot in his chest at the familiar drawl of Bitty’s voice. “Hey, Bits. I wasn’t sure you still wanted to. Um. It’s…I mean it’s been a while.”

Bitty’s cheeks pinked. “I know, I’m sorry. There was some family drama and I just didn’t have the energy to talk after all was said and done. But it’s better now.”

“And you?” Jack asked.

Bitty let out a slow, slightly trembling breath. “I…I’ve been better, but you know I’ve been worse, too. I wanna say I’m sorry for just up and leavin’ the way I did, but I think I needed it.”

“I understand,” Jack said, and tried to push as much sincerity as he could into his tone. “Trust me, Bits, I understand.”

Bitty chewed on his bottom lip for a second, then said, “Lardo told me everything. About the shop, about you payin’ rent and everything.”

Jack felt his cheeks heat up, and he shrugged. “It wasn’t…I don’t expect anything for it. But I know how important that shop was to you, Bits. And John already put you through enough. I wasn’t about to let him take that either—no matter how much time you needed. If you really don’t want it I…”

“No,” Bitty said in a rush. “No I…I want it. Lord, I don’t even know how to explain how much that means to me. I don’t deserve it but…”

“Yes,” Jack said firmly, and couldn’t help himself from touching the side of the screen. He hated it was cold glass under his hands and not the warmth of Bitty’s cheek. “You do deserve it. You deserve to have a support system that wants to be there to help you hold your life together if you’re falling apart. My team did the same for me after Liam died, after the accident. They could have put me up for trade, they could have shipped me off for someone else to deal with because they knew I wasn’t ever going to play the same. But they didn’t. You’re allowed to have the things you work hard for, Bits. You’re allowed to keep them, even when shit gets tough.”

Bitty let out a watery laugh, sniffing as he rubbed the back of his hand under his nose. “Lord, it’s no wonder you spent so many years as a captain, honey. You give a good pep talk.”

Jack chuckled quietly. “Only when it’s true. When it matters.”

Bitty licked his lips. “We should um. We should talk. About us. About what I did.”

Jack lowered his eyes, feeling anxiety squirming in his gut. “We should,” he agreed slowly. “I’d like to do it in person but…” He hesitated, then let Lisa’s words help give him strength to ask for what he wanted—what he needed. “I’d like to know if you regret it.”

Bitty’s eyes widened. “Kissing you?”

Jack shrugged. “I…was it…I mean, I know the moment was hard, and you were suffering but…”

“Honey,” Bitty said, and Jack’s voice went quiet at the fierce tone. “I don’t make a habit of kissin’ boys if I don’t want to kiss them. It was bad timing. It was terrible for me, and it was so unfair for me to put you in that position. But I…I wanted to. Lord, I’d wanted to for some time now, and I kind of got the feeling you wanted it too.”

Jack lowered his eyes, but nodded, a little shy and unsure. “Yes. I wasn’t going to say anything. It didn’t seem right to put that kind of pressure on you when your relationship was already so much. But I have feelings for you. And I’d like to talk about them when I see you in person. I guess…right now I just needed to know where we were at. If there’s maybe a chance we can…”

“Yes,” Bitty said without waiting for Jack to finish his sentence.

Jack couldn’t help a laugh. “You don’t know what I was going to say.”

“I can guess. Deductive reasoning,” Bitty chirped with a wink. “And Jack, the answer is yes. To whatever chance with me you’re hopin’ for. Absolutely, yes. It’s been months and I’ve been to see a therapist and I’m…maybe not better. There’s a lot I’m going to have to work through for a long time. But I feel like I’m ready to give us a shot.”

“Slowly,” Jack said.

Bitty let out a tiny laugh. “Lord, yes. But all the same, if you think I’m not pulling you into my arms and holding on for an unreasonable amount of time the moment I get you near, you’re sadly mistaken.”

Jack felt his entire body go soft, wanting and almost desperate to not be apart from Bitty anymore. “I want that,” he said. “I can’t wait.”

“Then I’ll see you in a few days. I’m flying back tomorrow, gonna get the shop up and running. I expect I’ll be your first stop the moment you’re back in Pittsburgh.”

“I won’t even stop at home to drop off my case,” Jack vowed. “I get in at noon. I’ll be at your side before one.”

“Oh, honey,” Bitty said, breathless and sweet, “time can’t go by fast enough.”

*** 

It took nearly all of Jack’s self control not to leave everything he had and race to the airport to fly home the very next morning. His tension was palatable the next morning in the kitchen as he bypassed coffee in favour of herbal tea to try and keep himself calm.

His dad was already at the breakfast bar, perched on the edge of his stool nursing his coffee and what looked like remnants of coffee cake. He watched Jack with a slight furrow on his brow, and after Jack’s sixth deep breath, he leant forward, clasping his hands beside his mug. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Jack closed his eyes slowly, then opened them. “I want to go home.”

Bob looked vaguely startled, a little confused, maybe on the edge of hurt. “Okay,” he said quietly. “Is it something your mother or I said?”

Jack swallowed, then shook his head, gripping his mug tight to let the heat against the pads of his fingers distract him. “It’s nothing to do with you. Or my visit here. I’m…” He hesitated. He wanted to tell his parents, he didn’t like keeping things from them and it wasn’t like he was ashamed of his life or his feelings. But he wasn’t sure he could endure the, ‘we’re just worried about you, we’re not sure you want to move on this soon after Liam,’ lecture.

“Jack,” Bob said carefully. “Whatever it is…”

“I’m seeing someone,” Jack blurted, like ripping off a bandage. “I mean…I think I’m seeing someone. I hope I…” He groaned, passing a hand down his face. “Eric Bittle.”

“Bookshop guy,” Bob said.

Jack nodded. “A few months ago, he broke up with his boyfriend. It got ugly—really ugly, he was hurt. His ex boyfriend is…” Jack grit his jaw, too many frustrated insults dancing at the tip of his tongue for him to pick just one. “It doesn’t matter. After things ended, he kissed me, then he panicked and left the state and we’ve been talking a little bit while he was gone. Now he’s coming back and he wants to…we’re thinking about…um.” Jack shrugged, trailing off.

Bob looked at him for a moment, then picked up his mug of coffee and smiled into it as he took a drink. “I’m happy for you,” he said eventually.

Jack’s eyebrows shot up. “Really?”

Bob snorted a laugh, giving his son an incredulous look. “Jack…do you think your mother and I want you to be miserable?”

“No, but…” Jack huffed a sigh. “I know it hasn’t been that long since Liam and…”

“I trust you to know when you’re ready to move on,” Bob said, not dropping his gaze from Jack’s eyes. “And from everything you’ve said, you and Liam were over a long time ago. If you’re happy, if you’re ready and he’s ready and you’re both happy, then so are we.”

Jack didn’t realise how much he needed that, how much he’d craved the approval of his parents, until it hit him. It was almost dizzying, and he only laughed when his dad came round the counter and yanked him into a big hug.

“Give us one more day,” Bob said. “Your mother has dinner plans for us. Then you can go off and woo that man of yours. Just remember to bring him home, eh? I’m ready to fall in love with another potential son-in-law.”

Jack’s smile was so wide, he swore it was going to crack his face in half.

*** 

The remaining day with his parents went as well as they always did. Once Bob realised Jack was okay, he spent the evening chirping him, Alicia laughing quietly into her hand and offering her own, quiet commentary. But they asked a lot of questions, and Jack told them as much as he could about Bitty—about the shop, about his split, about his feelings.

That night, his mother came in while he was finishing his packing, and she tugged him into a hug which startled him. “I just…I’m always going to worry,” Alicia said as she tucked her son right up against her front. “You’re my child, and I’ve always tried to do my best not to question your decisions—to just let you know that if they’re mistakes, your dad and I will be here for you after the fallout. But you haven’t been happy in a long time, and I wish I had seen it before now.”

“Maman,” Jack murmured, pulling back from her.

She shook her head. “If I had known about you and Liam, it probably wouldn’t have changed much. Except I might not have been so…polite.” She winked and Jack chuckled. “But I feel like a bad mother because it wasn’t until today, when I watched you smile when you talked about Eric, that I realised how little you did that when you and Liam were together. And I’m sorry. Maybe it would have helped, if I’d said something back then.”

Jack looked at her for a long time, feeling a profound gratitude that he had this, that he had the sort of parents he did, because so many people couldn’t say the same. “I love you, mama,” he said, and took her hand between both of his own. “I don’t think it would have made a difference. I was in denial for a really long time. And by the time I did figure it out—it stopped mattering. Rebecca was already pregnant, and he was already planning to leave.”

Alicia hesitated, then said, “Are you going to be okay with George having his baby?”

“It isn’t his baby. Or well, it won’t be, once the adoption is final,” Jack said, then shrugged. “But maybe it’ll be weird. Maybe it’ll be hard if the baby looks like him. I don’t know. It’s all…” He shrugged again. “Variables. I don’t know how I’m going to react until I get there. Lisa’s been helping me work through it. I think down the line, maybe it’ll be a good thing. If George ever wants to tell her baby about the biological father, well she’s got someone right here who knows a thing or two.”

“And Rebecca?” Alicia pressed.

“I can’t be sure,” Jack admitted. “The last time I talked to Sam, Rebecca said she was planning on moving back to London. Her father’s there—it’ll give her a fresh start, away from all this.”

“That’s…good, I suppose,” Alicia said, something in her tone Jack didn’t recognise. He gave her an imploring look, and she sighed. “I guess I just…I wanted you so badly, I can’t imagine even the death of your father would make me want to give you up.”

“Rebecca didn’t have that,” Jack reminded her. “It wasn’t what she wanted. It’s not the same.”

“I know,” Alicia said from behind a sigh, then reached up and cupped his cheek and smiled. “I’m very lucky to have got a son like you.”

Jack snorted. “Thanks, maman.”

She yanked him into another hug, then stepped back. “I’ll let you finish packing. I know you’ve got someone waiting for you at home.”

Jack grinned brightly at her. “Yeah. Yeah, I suppose I do.”

*** 

The flight felt endless, Jack’s entire body humming with anticipation. When he looked out the window and saw them start the descent into the Pittsburgh area, he thought he might shake out of his skin. If he closed his eyes, he could see Bitty’s smile behind his lids, could hear the echo of his voice.

He had two text messages on his phone sent before his flight. 

**Have a safe flight, Jack.**

**I can’t wait to see you.**

He stared at the screen, letting his thumb brush lightly against the black font spelling out Bitty’s name. Less than an hour, he’d be in a car, hurtling down the road toward Thousand Hours. Less than five hundred steps, and he’d be in the doors, and if he was very lucky, if he prayed hard enough, his arms might be filled with the warmth of Bitty just seconds after he stepped inside.

*** 

Jack’s case came out last, and he was ready to scream, but managed to make it out the door and to the car park where he’d stored his car for the duration of his trip. It started without a problem, and he took a moment to breathe through surging anxiety before he switched it on and began navigating through the airport traffic.

He attempted to find his calm with the gridlock, which was near impossible, but he told himself reckless driving would only delay him further. Eventually things began to thin out. Eventually he was able to pull away, and navigate over familiar roads, and down streets until Thousand Hours got closer and closer.

His hands were shaking, but he was very nearly there.

He could see the building from far off. The sign was open, there was a smattering of cars parked nearby, but the shop didn’t look overwhelmed. Jack glanced at the time, then at a free space to pull his car in.

Taking a moment to himself, he gathered his courage, switched the car off, and pocketed his keys. Just a few steps—crossing the street—opening the door—he’d be there.

Jack could see Bitty through the window, chatting happily to Dex who was clearing something away from the espresso counter. He looked the same—exactly like he did before he left, like Jack had seen him on skype. Dressed casual, but somehow the most gorgeous thing Jack had ever seen in his life.

His throat was tight, but he pulled the door open. The little bell above it jingled, and Bitty turned his happy customer service grin toward him. And then it faltered. His eyes widened, and one hand came up to press against his sternum.

“Jack,” he said, his soft voice carrying across the din of the shop.

Jack felt the corners of his mouth twitch up. “Hey, Bits.”

After too long a pause, too much tension, Dex reached out and gave Bitty a small shove. “Uh. I think this is the part where you go and…”

It was all the encouragement Bitty needed. He managed to shuck his filthy apron while flinging himself round the corner. It pooled on the floor a foot away from Jack’s shoes, and then Jack’s arms were filled with Bitty, exactly as he’d imagined. Only better. Warmer, softer, more perfect than he could have anticipated.

The smell of him flooded Jack’s nose—all soft spices, and the twang of bread yeast, and the sharpness of his cologne. His hair smelt like green apples, and it was only slightly stiff with product as it brushed against Jack’s mouth. Jack couldn’t help but press a kiss there.

“Lord,” Bitty said, his voice slightly wet, “I think we’re making a scene. I…come with me. Come on.” His slightly calloused, warm hand fit inside Jack’s, and he tugged him along after shouting to Dex to man the front.

Jack was aware of only one thing—Bitty’s hand in his. His feet carried him automatically, down a small, dark hall, and into an office. It was barely a closet, enough room for a desk and chair, and the stacks of papers that had piled up along the wall.

And there was exactly enough room for Jack to stand, with Bitty pressed up against him. He looked down to see Bitty’s red, watery eyes taking him in, and Jack couldn’t help himself. His hand reached up, cupping Bitty’s cheek, his thumb brushing lightly against his bottom lip.

“Hey, Bits,” he said again, this time with more purpose.

Bitty swallowed, and leant into Jack’s touch. “Hey, sweetheart. I missed you. God, I missed you.”

Jack let out a tense laugh. “Yeah. Me too. But I’m here now.”

“You are,” Bitty repeated.

Jack stared another moment, then brought his other hand up to cradle Bitty’s face between his palms. “I’d like to kiss you now. Um. If that’s alright.”

Bitty let out a tense, high laugh. “Gosh. Yes, honey. It’s more than alright. I’ve been thinking of it non-stop.”

Jack’s smile softened, and then he leant in. There was the barest pause, just a breath, and then their lips pushed together. It was too cautious in a way, hesitant from the distance and time apart, but it was also like coming home. Bitty’s mouth was soft and pliant, parting carefully for Jack’s tongue which brushed just lightly against his bottom lip. Bitty’s hands fisted into the front of Jack’s shirt as Jack brought one of his own hands to press against the small of Bitty’s back, tucking Bitty against him tight.

When he pulled back, they were both slightly breathless, both slightly pink in the cheeks, and Jack rested his forehead against Bitty’s. “Let me take you out. On a date,” he said, gathering himself, trying to keep his head straight. “I want to take you out on a date tonight.”

Bitty’s face bloomed into the most beautiful grin as he pushed on his toes, kissing Jack long and sweet before pulling away to say, “Yes. Yes, Jack, I would absolutely love that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOO that felt good. Just two more chapters left xx


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wellllll somehow I managed to get the final chapter out before my lectures start. TOMORROW. Ahh! I wrote this as I was working through a bit of anxiety, so hopefully it's not all crap. There is much fluff to be had, so I hope you all enjoy it.
> 
> All that's left is an epilogue which I'll try and get to as quick as I can. Other than that, I'll be working on my baseball AU, and I think that's it until I have some idea how coursework heavy this term is going to be. But I appreciate everyone sticking with this, and I love you all so much. I'll try and get to comments soon, but just know I love and appreciate every single one. <3 xx

Jack was aching from head to toe, covered in sweat, hating life, and loving every single second. They were finally working on on-ice drills, and a lot of the rookies were better than Jack anticipated. Most of them wouldn’t be on the starting roster, but they had potential, and he had a good feeling about the season.

And he was skating well—steady, strong, focused.

Maybe it was more than just that, of course. Maybe it was that the rest of his life apart from hockey was finally feeling better. According to George there was no risk for him being traded. He had good chemistry with most of the veterans—most of them had known him since he was younger, and he’d played against them all for years.

And when Jack was in his car, he picked up his phone to call Bitty and he knew the call would be answered. He’d get the sweet, southern drawl in his earpiece as he headed home. Then later, at the close of the shop, Jack could drive over and Bitty would get in his car, and he’d get a kiss across the console.

It had him smiling all the way to the parking garage, and into the sun of the late afternoon.

Bitty picked up after three rings, sounding harried, but not unhappy to hear from him. “Hey there, sweetpea. How was your day?”

“Good,” Jack said, leaning back in his seat, his eyes fixed on the road ahead. “I’m really looking forward to our preseason start. I’m also glad it’s not the Bruins this year. I’m not sure I could take having to face off with them so soon.”

“You don’t play them til when?”

Jack hummed in thought. “November, I think. Plenty of time for me to get my bearings. Anyway, how was your day?”

Bitty laughed softly, and Jack heard the hiss of the steamer from the espresso machine. “You sure that’s all you gotta say? Usually you’re talkin’ my ear off about this play and that play.”

Jack huffed. “Yeah well, maybe I had a good day and I don’t need to over-analyse every second.”

“Who are you, and what have you done with my Jack,” Bitty demanded, and Jack felt the zing of being called _his_ by Bitty, rush through his limbs. “Anyway, you wanna do dinner tonight? I don’t really feel like cookin’, but I don’t feel like going out either so…”

“I can pick something up. Soup and sandwiches from Levi’s maybe?”

Bitty groaned. “Yes, please. Lord, that’s the best thing anyone’s said to me all day.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Jack said with a huge grin.

He could practically hear Bitty’s eyeroll. “Lord, honey. Don’t you start. I’ll take a Lyft over if you wanna just sit and home and wait. Derek’s gonna close up for me, so I can sneak out around six.”

“Perfect. See you soon, bud.” Jack heard the little beep, signalling the call had been disconnected, and he carried his smile all the way to the deli, and then home.

*** 

When Bitty texted and said he was five minutes out, Jack took the sandwiches out of the fridge, put the soup on to heat, and was just fixing the tray for a living room picnic when there was a soft knock on the door. A little thrill went through Jack when he thought of the potential gift he had for Bitty, but he pushed that aside to let his boyfriend in, and the second the door shut, he had Bitty crowded against the cool wood.

“Missed you,” he said, snuffling his nose along the shorn sides of Bitty’s hair.

Bitty laughed, dragging his fingers through Jack’s slightly damp locks which were nearly dry from his earlier shower. “Mm, you smell nice. You try that cinnamon shampoo bar I got?”

“I did,” Jack said. “I’m not sure if I liked it, but it does smell nice.”

Bitty nipped Jack on the side of his jaw, then pushed him away. “Alright, feed me, mister. Then we can get back to all the canoodling.”

Jack grinned, tangling his fingers with Bitty’s as he pulled him to the living room. He pushed him down on the sofa, then went back to the kitchen for the tray of food. The pair of them snuggled, sat on the floor with their feet stretched out under the coffee table, and Bitty put on some HGTV as they tucked in. The food was rich, good, the sort of comfort food that made Jack feel slow and lazy, but not over-fed and greasy.

He didn’t bother getting up straight away, either, just pushed his bowl away, then nestled against Bitty who snuggled right back, grabbing Jack’s hand to trace lines on his palm. It was nice. It was domestic. Jack wasn’t unfamiliar with easy nights like this. For all the drama and stress Liam had been, there had been this too. There had been the idea of forever—of being with your best friend for the rest of your life. And it didn’t always have to be romance. Sometimes it could just be platonic affection.

Jack had known, since things had gone to hell with Liam, that he’d never be with anyone who wasn’t his best friend. Not again. He wasn’t foolish enough to think that things couldn’t change, that they could become different people who weren’t good for each other, but things with Bitty felt different. Lighter. Easier.

He let out a small sigh and turned his face to place a kiss on the side of Bitty’s neck.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Bitty asked, letting his fingers drift up into Jack’s hair.

Jack hummed. “Nothing specific. Just…happy.”

“Well, I reckon bein’ back on the ice’ll do that to you.”

Jack huffed a laugh. “They’ve got you watching all my old hockey interviews again, haven’t they.”

Bitty giggled. “Just a few. There’s one on youtube called Ten Times Jack Zimmermann Tried To Set the Press On Fire. It’s pretty great.”

Jack groaned. “It isn’t like that, you know.”

“I know, baby.” Bitty’s fingers trailed from Jack’s hair, to the back of his neck, and traced easy circles there. “I’m just chirping you.”

Jack huffed a tiny laugh. “What’s new. Anyway, it’s more than just hockey, Bits. It’s…it’s this. I was just thinking about what it was like um. Before. Before I met you. I know you know it wasn’t always bad, but it was never that good, and I think I put so much focus on hockey because home was so unfulfilling. Now I don’t have that anxiety when I’m done for the day. There’s never a moment I want to draw out my time at the rink so I don’t have to face what’s waiting for me here. And I know it’s only been a few months, but it feels…different. It wasn’t like this with Liam in the beginning.”

“I know what you mean,” Bitty said, then stopped. “I know talking about John upsets you…”

“It’s over,” Jack said decisively. “I mean, do I sometimes wish he played hockey so I have a legitimate reason to beat the hell out of him…yes?” He stopped when Bitty snorted a laugh. “But I’m not…it doesn’t upset me when you talk about him. He was a big part of your life for a lot of years and I don’t want you to feel like you can’t talk about that. You’re here. With me.”

“I _am_ here with you,” Bitty said, a sort of fierceness in his tone. His hand grabbed Jack by the chin, turning his face to place a real, proper kiss on his mouth. “I’m here.”

Jack closed his eyes, holding Bitty tight to him, breathing him in, basking in it.

“I remember what it was like, though,” Bitty said after some time. He shifted so he could lay his head against Jack’s shoulder, nearly in his lap, Jack’s arms curled round his waist. “When John and I first met, I think I was more excited by my first proper relationship that I didn’t consider…I wasn’t happy, that it wasn’t any fun. We got together shortly before my birthday, you know?”

Jack made a considering hum, letting Bitty know he was listening. His hands slipped under Bitty’s shirt, splaying wide against the expanse of his skin.

“Things were tense, but we were both so busy that we didn’t see each other much. Anyway, he decided he wanted to surprise me, so he got this hotel room, and well…I mean it wasn’t the nicest. We were both still kind of broke back then, but it was the gesture. So we had dinner, and we came back to the room, and I guess…I guess I had some expectations but they weren’t the same as his. We got into a huge fight, and he was just yellin’ and hollerin’ at me and making a scene and I was so…” Bitty breathed out. “I don’t even know what I was. I felt like a kid all of a sudden. I just remember sittin’ on the bed huggin’ my knees to my chest wanting my momma real bad. I actually called her when he went out for a walk to cool down, but it didn’t make me feel any better.”

“Bits,” Jack murmured, kissing his temple softly.

Bitty shrugged. “If I had any idea what relationships were meant to be like, I probably would’a run right then and there. But all my friends were young, and miserable, and I just thought it was par for the course.”

“You deserved better.”

Bitty chuckled, turning his head so he could look at Jack. “I know that. Now. I mean, I knew it a while back, too, but I was afraid to give up after all that time. I still feel a little foolish it took me catchin’ him with his dick in someone else to get me to walk away. And I still feel foolish that there was a piece’a me that almost went back. Which…”

“Was why you left,” Jack murmured.

Bitty nodded. “Stupid.”

“It isn’t.” When Bitty scoffed in disbelief, Jack took him by the shoulders, pushing him back so he could look directly at him. “It isn’t stupid. Maybe it is a little foolish, but you’re not the first person to consider going back to a shitty ex. And you didn’t. You left until you trusted yourself. I couldn’t even do that. I was the fool that hung on and hung on until the Universe was so fed up, it made the choice for me.”

“Sweetheart,” Bitty said, his voice nearly a whisper. He palmed Jack’s cheek. “Is that what you think?”

“On my more irrational days. I think…I think, deep down, things just happen because they happen. My point is though,” Jack stopped, cupping his palm against the back of Bitty’s hand and squeezing it there against his cheek, “it doesn’t make you stupid to consider what most people consider. It doesn’t make you weak, either.”

Bitty’s eyes shut for a second, then opened slowly. “I’m glad I found you.”

Jack couldn’t help a laugh. It bubbled from his chest before he could even think about controlling it, and he surged forward, kissing Bitty over, and over, and over. When he finally pulled away, he kept in close, nuzzling his nose alongside Bitty’s. “I’m glad too. I don’t know what my life would be like without you. I don’t want to think about it.”

“So don’t,” Bitty said, then fisted his hands in the front of Jack’s shirt. “Take me to bed instead.”

*** 

They had agreed, between the two of them, to take things slow. Neither of them wanted to be apart from each other much, but they knew they needed more than just a few weeks of casual hand-holding and coffee dates to make something work.

When Bitty spent the night, it was the two of them wrapped round each other, existing. But nothing more.

Now, however, things were different. The air between them was charged, hands wandered, mouths seeking out open patches of skin as they lay on the cool sheets. Jack wanted to touch everywhere, to experience every bit of exposed skin he could, and he felt almost drunk on desire as he watched Bitty turn pink, arch against his pressing fingers, his mouth parted and panting and asking for more.

Jack swallowed, then pulled away after a moment, nervous about where they were headed. “Bits,” he murmured, and he watched Bitty’s eyes come open slowly. “Bits, we need to…we should…talk. About this. About what we’re doing.”

Bitty swallowed thickly, pushing himself up on his elbow, nodding slowly though it was obvious he was trying to regain control of himself. After several breaths, he cleared his throat. “I want you.”

Jack’s eyes fluttered shut and he fought back a groan. “I…I want you too. I do.”

“If this is too much…” Bitty started.

Jack shook his head, reaching out, helpless to do anything but press his palm to Bitty’s side. “It’s not. I feel…I want…” He took another breath. If he couldn’t say it, he wasn’t ready to do it. And he was. “I want to have sex with you. However you want it. I’m…” He pursed his lips, then decided, fuck it, because if it was wrong now, it wouldn’t be right later. “I’m falling in love with you.”

Bitty’s breath hitched, his cheeks going instantly pink, and he stared for a long moment. “You mean that?”

Jack nodded. “I’ve known it for a while, since before you left. I wasn’t _in_ love, but I knew I was getting there. I’ve been falling for you since the day we met and you gave me pie.”

Bitty couldn’t help a small laugh, which sounded thick in his throat. He pushed himself against Jack, feathering kisses over his jaw, across his mouth. “Sweetheart, I love you. I loved you for a while—I thought as a friend, but it wasn’t until I left I realised how much more it was. I was so confused, I didn’t know how it was supposed to feel.”

“I know,” Jack murmured, brushing his hands along Bitty’s cheeks, pushing his fingers into Bitty’s hair. “I know what I feel now, though.”

“Me too,” Bitty admitted. “And I want everything with you. It’ll be good, because it’s us, and we don’t have to rush. We have all the time in the world.”

Jack knew first-hand how untrue that could be. He knew things could end in a second, without warning. But he wasn’t going to let that fear rush them. And he was going to savour every second he had with Bitty, and he was going to make sure every single day was enough.

When it was obvious they were both ready, both wanting, Jack shifted against Bitty, pushing him back to the sheets, and let his mouth do the work. He sought every inch of skin which made Bitty moan, made him flush and arch against him.

Jack’s fingers carefully peeled Bitty’s clothes away, tossing them off the side of the bed, and paid his skin so much attention Bitty was squirming and breathing heavy, his hands digging into Jack’s hair as Jack’s mouth trailed down, and down, and down to the place Bitty wanted him most.

They paused for condoms, and then Jack took Bitty into his mouth, and it was over almost too quick. Bitty had been worked up for a while now, so within less than three minutes, he was pulsing against Jack’s tongue. Jack pulled back carefully when it was over, dragging his hands up and down Bitty’s thighs before surging up to kiss him. He was still hard, still wanting, and he shifted against the cut of Bitty’s hip.

“Yeah,” Bitty whispered. “Jack if you want to…like that. You can.”

Jack wasn’t going to last long. With Bitty flushed and sex-mussed beneath him, smelling heady with sweat and semen, Jack could feel his release cresting. His eyes shut, and his hips pushed, pushed, pushed until suddenly he was shuddering, and spilling.

It was more of a mess than Bitty had made, and he partially regretted not getting a condom to contain it, but Bitty was up in a flash, coming back with a wet cloth to clean them up. They were both exhausted after, the emotional side having been quite a lot, even if it had ended well.

Bitty crawled back under the duvet, but before he could get too comfy, Jack remembered his gift. He hopped up, ignoring Bitty’s glower, and strolled naked into his kitchen. It was in the drawer, wrapped in a small box, waiting. Jack felt the weight of it against his palm as he wandered back to the bedroom, and he found Bitty sat half up, arms crossed over his chest.

“I’ll have you know Mr Zimmermann, I actually _do_ expect post-coital snuggles.”

Jack chuckled as he slid up next to him, kissing him until he was mollified and relaxed again. “I promise I won’t make this a habit. I just um. I had been thinking about this for a while and I thought now might ah…might be a good time.”

“That had better not be a ring,” Bitty warned as he eyed the box which was distinctly not ring shaped. 

Jack laughed. “I don’t like those sorts of surprises. When I propose to you, you’ll have time to prepare. And you’ll probably need to pick out the rings. I’ve been told my taste is…not great.”

Bitty’s cheeks went pink all over again, and he blinked at Jack a few times. “Did you say _when_?”

Jack shrugged, unrepentant even as he shoved the little box at Bitty. “I’m an optimist at heart. Which is why I’m giving you this.” He held his breath a second as Bitty’s fingers went for the opening. “Will you be my boyfriend?”

Bitty prised the lid open and stared down. Inside, nestled against cloth, was a small silver key attached to a key ring. It had two charms—one shaped like a pie, the other a lego in the shape of Jack Zimmermann with his Pittsburgh jersey.

When Bitty looked up, his eyes widened. “Why are you lookin’ at me like…” Realisation seemed to hit him, and he gripped the key before flinging himself into Jack’s arms. “Lord, Jack. Of _course_ I’ll be your boyfriend. Gracious, so formal.” He pulled back, then kissed Jack, slow and sweet. “This is wonderful, thank you.”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck, shrugging. “I was afraid it might be ah…a little vain? But Lardo said you’d love it.”

Bitty stroked the little lego arm, then grinned up at Jack. “Bless her heart, she knows me too well. I absolutely love it. It’s like havin’ a little pocket-size you with me all day.”

Jack felt a strange, warm sensation rush from his belly, through the whole of his body, and he pulled Bitty to him, holding him tight. In minutes, the key was on the nightstand, the lights were off, and Bitty was tucked against Jack’s front, though somehow it still felt like Jack was being held by him instead of the other way round.

He breathed out, breathed in, let himself just feel this moment. He’d never had anything like this before. Life had been hard—it had put him through the wringer, and somehow he’d come out the other side with this beautiful man in his arms, and a future that no longer terrified him.

He tipped Bitty’s chin up, and kissed him once more before sleep claimed either one of them. “I love you so much, Bits.”

Bitty smiled, soft and content. “Oh honey. I love you too.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick little epilogue I banged out between lectures today. Feels weird to be done with this, but I like where it went.
> 
> Thank you so so much to everyone who stuck with it, and commented, and left kudos. You're all so amazing and I love you to pieces xx

The buzzer sounded, and it was muffled in a way, through his heaving breaths, and the ringing disappointment in his ears. Somewhere to his right, the Schooners were slamming into each other and screaming and crying, and getting ready to kiss anyone that came within five feet of them. Then they’d smile for press, and they’d start making the laps round the rink with cold metal pressed against their palms.

By the time that happened, Jack would have done press, he would have showered, and there would be a host of people who loved him waiting…somewhere. Bitty had an all-access badge, so maybe he’d be in the hallway—maybe he’d be in the locker room hovering near Jack’s stall waiting to kiss it all better.

He didn’t know. Couldn’t know.

It could always be better than this, Jack knew. Playing for more than one team, in more than one NHL season, Jack had more losses than he had wins. He had heard the Stanley Cup buzzer ringing for someone else’s victory more times than he wanted to think about.

He had wanted to hold the cup and kiss Bitty standing under it.

But a tiny voice in the back of his head reminded him, ‘You still get to kiss Bitty. It might not be under the cup, but you still get to go home and tuck him close and kiss him however many times you want.’

Maybe a year ago, that little voice wouldn’t have existed. Or the pressure of doing well after such an injury would have a louder voice that would have screamed, ‘You should have done better! You knew this injury was going to prove this was nothing more than a step toward the end!’

He didn’t think that now. Not after the handshake line, not as he wobbled down the tunnel, his ankles feeling the stress from six long games—two wins, four losses. They could have tied it up, and they didn’t, and Jack let himself feel every excruciating second of the last period where no one could get control of the puck, and the damn score had just sat there four to three until the buzzer ran out.

Jack met Sid’s gaze for approximately nine second. Geno clapped him on the shoulder. Somewhere in the background Marc-André broke his stick with a loud _crack_. Then there was the long, stern lecture from Mario telling them they did well, they couldn’t win them all, they’d played the fuck out of the game and they should be proud.

Somehow Jack managed just a few minutes of press, and then the shower. There was more to be done, and it felt like a goddamn eternity before they were reunited with their partners and their families. Bitty was there, sandwiched between his parents, showing them something on his phone.

They looked up as Jack approached, a little sheepish, more than a lot tired. He rubbed the heel of his hand against the back of his neck, and felt a long sigh escape his chest. His dad gave him the knowing look—understanding the pain of loss, and the frustration, and the hope that next year would be better. His mother pat his cheek, leant in to kiss him briefly.

And then Bitty was in his arms. Sure, warm, solid, strong. His face fit into Jack’s neck, his breath puffing just under his ear as Jack rubbed his hands up and down Bitty’s back. It was like a soothing balm to frayed nerves that Jack had been suffering since the start of playoffs. Bitty had dealt with his bad moods, and no sleep, and endless stress. And now it was over, and he didn’t have a win to show for it, but he still made it to the final game and that…

Well that would have to be enough.

It felt like another eternity before they were back in their apartment. Jack almost laughed at how normal it all felt suddenly. The way he toed off his shoes as Bitty pulled the car keys out of his pocket and deposited them into the painted glass bowl they kept on the little end-table. And the way Bitty yawned, and twisted his back, then wandered into the kitchen and leant on the open fridge door, humming some tune under his breath, and turning his head to say, “Honey, you want a drink or something to eat?”

Suddenly Jack had to touch him, to draw him close, to get physical proof this wasn’t some fever dream brought on by some infection after the accident. He crossed the room in a handful of long strides, and then he put his hands at Bitty’s hips and turned him from the fridge. He looked, only for a second, before leaning in to kiss Bitty’s mouth which was dipped down at the corners in confusion.

Bitty responded straight away, like he did always, with everything. His mouth parted and his hands—smaller than Jack’s and calloused with burn scars—twisted into the front of Jack’s shirt. Jack backed him up against the counter, then grabbed him by the hips and with Bitty’s hop, lifted him onto the edge of the granite.

“I love you,” Jack murmured between warm kisses.

Bitty couldn’t help but laugh as Jack moved along his jaw, nipping at his skin, pushing his face into the crook of Bitty’s neck to breathe in the scent of his soft cologne and stale airport air. “Oh sweetheart, I love you too. And I know the loss was hard, but y’all did so well. I swear I’m going to be hoarse for a week with all that screaming I did.”

Jack smiled, which in itself was nearly a miracle being they just lost one of the biggest games of his career. But all the same, he felt the grin spread slow like honey across his mouth, crinkling at his eyes as he pulled back to look at the man he loved. Bitty’s own eyes were wide, dark with lack of sleep and stress. There was a line between his brows that was probably mostly permanent by now, and Jack rubbed his thumb against it before turning his hand to cup Bitty’s cheek.

“Marry me.”

Bitty blinked, and Jack saw forever in his eyes. “You’re sure? You’re serious?”

“I’ve been sure, and I’ve been serious since the second I realised I was in love with you,” Jack said. “But I didn’t want to rush you. We don’t have to do it soon. I just need you to know it’s what I want, that I’m ready. And I’d like to know if you are, too.”

“What if I’m not?” Bitty asked.

Jack braced himself for a rush of pain, a feeling of rejection. It was there, faint, pushed down by the fact that Jack knew even if Bitty wasn’t ready now, he would be. Some day. “Then you’re not. We wait. As long as you don’t want to leave me…”

“Never,” Bitty said, his voice almost sharp, fierce. “I can’t see a world where I’d want that.”

“Then whenever you want, bud.”

Bitty drew his bottom lip between his teeth, then released it and said, “I thought you were going to ask me if you won the cup.”

Jack couldn’t help a tiny chuckle. “I didn’t have a specific plan. Well…other than to kiss you under it. But I…” He shrugged, glanced back at the door, at a trail of their things they’d left coming in from the long journey to the west coast, and he sighed again—a happy, relieved feeling. “Walking in the house tonight I realised that this is home. Not because my name is on some piece of paper saying it’s mine, but because it has your fingerprints all over. It has your moomaw’s throw on the couch, and half the records are yours, and it has your really crappy finger paintings on the walls…”

He stopped and laughed when Bitty smacked his shoulder and said, “Hey, you said you loved those!”

“I do,” Jack said, kissing him once, twice, three times. “I love them. But I have terrible taste in art.”

Bitty rolled his eyes. “Terrible taste, he says, right after he proposes.”

Jack laughed again, reaching up for Bitty’s face with both hands, cradling it against his warm palms. “It’s home because of you and I want…I just want that to be forever. I don’t care how it happens. I’d like to marry you, but I’ll be happy either way.”

Bitty nodded, his face steely and determined. Then he took a breath and said, “Yes.” His voice cracked at the end, and he laughed as his eyes welled with tears, and his cheeks turned bright pink. “Yes, I want to marry you. I want you to buy me some gaudy ring, and I want to invite everyone we’ve ever known, and I want to kiss your face right in front of them. And I want to go on a ridiculously expensive honeymoon where we get drinks in coconuts, and we can snap pics to all our friends and make them so jealous they want to cry.”

Jack didn’t realise his eyes were tearing up until Bitty’s face became a blur, and his throat felt sticky and hot. He did the only thing he could do—he leant in, and kissed Bitty again and again and again. And then again. “Yes. Yes to all of that,” he promised.

Bitty dragged him as close as he could get, then lifted his legs and hooked them round Jack’s waist. “Take me to bed, Mr Zimmermann. I know we’re both too dang tired to celebrate this properly tonight, but tomorrow…”

Jack smiled, hoisting Bitty up, then against him, his hands cupping Bitty’s ass tight. They locked gazes, then shared another, slow, sweet kiss. “Tomorrow,” Jack said. And the tomorrow after that, and the one after that.

And on, and on, and on.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come yell at me on tumblr. [angryspace-ravenclaw](https://angryspace-ravenclaw.tumblr.com)


End file.
